Brave The Storm
by Serpent Tailed Angel
Summary: After two years, Rogue has finally given in to Sting's pleading for a second child. Things should be easier this time around. There's nothing between the two, after all. But harsh symptoms and old wounds flare up, and it soon becomes apparent that the two's second experience with expectant parenthood will be anything but easy. Sequel to Cue The Storm. Mpreg.
1. Chapter 1

**STA:** If you didn't read Cue The Storm yet you're welcome to try and follow this one, but a lot of stuff happened in that fic that influenced things in this fic, so you might want to go check it out first.

Also, a quick timing note: the two years listed in the story summary refer to since Sting first mentioned having a second child. The three years mentioned in the second paragraph refer to when Rogue became pregnant in CTS. I know _someone_ is going to tell me I couldn't keep my time difference consistent if I didn't clear that one up.

* * *

For a third and, Rogue made Sting promise, final time, the professional life ruiner was going to visit their apartment.

Maybe it wasn't entirely fair to refer to Maple that way, if for no reason other than that no one actually paid her to ruin lives, and thus life ruining was not her official profession. But for as little love as Rogue had for her, he didn't care. Void of any noteworthy aspects beyond her talent for accidentally spawning disaster for everyone she met, he knew he ought not to be so harsh with the Mermaid Heel reserves girl. After all, she hadn't _meant_ to screw up the spell three years ago that left him pregnant with Sting's child, and she certainly hadn't deliberately caused any of the chaos he found his life in after that, even if the whole mess was a direct result of her botched spell.

And the child that came out of that mess? Alex? Rogue loved her to death. The little toddler currently clinging to the end of his cape and peeking at the stranger from behind his leg was the most precious thing in his life. She'd been well worth whatever struggle he'd put up with while having her. But that didn't mean he'd enjoyed that struggle. It just meant he was happy to look somewhere other than his daughter when placing blame. And Maple, who had now come back into his life and was forcing his precious family through drama again, was an easy target.

"Are you sure you don't want to try again after this?" she asked. The question was asked in innocence, but it made Rogue growl. Alex took that as a sign that the stranger was bad, and ducked under his cape.

Sting smiled for her and shook his head. "Last time."

He didn't want this to be their last attempt, Rogue knew. Sting had insisted they have a younger sibling for Alex since the girl was only a few weeks old. Claiming that he would be the one pregnant this time around, since Rogue was so adverse to carrying another child himself. A few months earlier Rogue had finally given in completely to Sting's persistent begging, agreeing that Alex would be old enough by the time the next child came for parenthood to remain manageable for the two of them. The only concern he'd had was that, with the timing of things, their second child might be born too close to Alex's birthday.

This was no longer a concern. Even though Sting had tracked down Maple the very next day and coaxed her into recreating the accidental spell that had left four men pregnant, and come home that evening already suggesting names for the child he was then carrying.

After all, that child had been lost a month later. The second time, Sting had only been pregnant two weeks before miscarrying.

Deep down, Rogue suspected Sting's body was well aware of his own concerns. The ones that Sting seemed not to be touched by. Only a few weeks before Alex was born, Sting had been injured horribly. He'd been in a coma for almost a week, monitored in the hospital several weeks more, and in a wheelchair and then on crutches for months and months after. And even if the doctors swore Sting was good as new, even if he could fight the same way he used to, Rogue had never fully squelched the fear that those injuries might still drag his lover down.

But it was just his imagination, those times he saw Sting limping slightly on a leg that hadn't been struck that hard in a fight. Probably nothing. He hoped it was nothing. And if not, then maybe Sting would miscarry again, and not hurt himself in this third attempt.

Rogue felt wicked for wanting that, remembering how brightly Sting had beamed coming home with the news that he was pregnant, and how hard he'd cried when he no longer was. Looking at Sting now, anxious but hopeful as Maple cast her spell, he almost wanted to take back his order that this be the last attempt. It would just kill Sting inside, he knew, if this time failed too, and he had to give up his wish for another child.

But then Rogue had watched that wish come to consume him over the past few months, taking more and more of Sting's focus as it started to look less and less likely. If it wasn't possible, then it would be better for Sting to accept and move on.

"Mama?" Alex pulled down on Rogue's cape, pulling the clasp that held in place tight against his neck.

He coughed and tugged the cape the other way so as to more easily breath, then turned and dropped down onto one knee so she wouldn't have to look up so high to speak to him.

"Is something wrong?"

"Mama, bad lady?"

A bigger person than Rogue would have assured their child that Maple was a good person and that there was no reason to be afraid of her. Rogue, however, _was_ afraid of her, and wanted Alex to stay far, far away from the woman.

He kept a distance from Maple while she worked with Sting, carrying Alex back into the nursery and digging around for toys to keep her entertained with. She had no shortage of stuffed animals, and in no time he had her set up so he was resting against a giant stuffed bear, cuddling a little stuffed dragon in her arms, and sucking on her thumb as he kept her entertained by making a miniature production from manipulated shadows.

Being his daughter in a million ways that she would never be Sting's, Alex was quite possibly the least afraid of the dark of any two-year-old in the history of mankind. Having been a small child himself while being raised by a shadow dragon, Rogue envied her for that.

She was giggling at his shadow knight, fumbling to try and impress a princess, when he heard the front door slam. It was less than a minute later before he saw Sting go into their bedroom. Odd. He'd expected Sting to come bursting into the room talking about how this time they really would have a second child.

Alex took priority. Rogue spent the next two hours playing with her until she began to nod off, at which point he set her back in her crib and went to check on Sting.

Sting, to his surprise, was lying away in their bed, curled up and staring blankly at the wall. It looked like he'd begun to change into pajamas, but given up while only halfway done undressing. Good for him. Noon was too early to get into pajamas.

"Did the spell work out alright?"

"Yeah."

"How are you feeling?"

"Dizzy."

"That should pass soon enough." Having once been the subject of Maple's male impregnating spell himself, Rogue remembered how disoriented he'd been immediately after being exposed to her magic. "I can make you lunch. Is there anything you want?"

The offer wasn't as generous as it might look to an outsider. So talented was Sting at burning food that if Rogue didn't cook, put together sandwiches, and even pour their bowls of cereal, they went hungry.

"Chicken noodle… I guess."

"You guess?"

"I'm not hungry."

"Is the dizziness that bad?"

"No. I think I'm developing an immunity to it. The room's only tilting a little. It's just…" Sting glanced up at Rogue. "This is my last chance, you know?"

Because Rogue had decreed that the third attempt had to be the final. He looked Sting over, lying dejected, half naked in bed. Then he glanced across the hall to the nursery door, where Alex was asleep. Was now a good time? There had been a few moments here and there where Rogue had thought it was finally time, only to be interrupted by Alex screaming or crying, but once she laid down to nap she was usually out for an hour or two. Now was probably the best chance they'd have for a while.

Couldn't hurt to try.

Rogue shut the bedroom door, undoing the clasp that held his cape in place and letting it drop. The cape was followed by his shirt. Now only wearing pants, Rogue got onto the bed, crawling over Sting.

"How about we do something to celebrate your being pregnant? To cheer you up?" he offered. "And if it doesn't work out, then we can do something _special_ again. As consolation."

Sting, bafflingly, didn't take the hint. Not even after Rogue bent down and kissed him. So Rogue was forced to lean over so his body was just above Sting's. He kissed him again, on the cheek, then bit Sting's ear, tugging softly on it before whispering, "Whatever you want to do…"

"Maybe later."

Rogue froze

"Maybe… later?"

"Later," Sting repeated.

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Rogue rolled off of Sting. "You've been pestering me for sex of the better part of _a_ _decade_. The one time I'm in the mood you want it _later_? You do realize Alex will be awake later, right?"

Sting blushed and averted his gaze. "Please just make soup or something."

"Sting."

"Later, Rogue. Just…" he put hand on his stomach. "Once they're bigger. When they've had time to… when I know they're staying. I don't want to do anything, I mean _anything_, that might make me lose this one."

"Fine." Rogue rose from the bed and went to put his shirt back on. "But from personal experience, here's a bit of advice: sex is easier when you aren't late term."

Sting growled and pulled a pillow over his head. That was his usual reaction to the reminder that, when the two of them had hit a rough patch and ended up separating for almost a year, Rogue had ended up sleeping with Natsu. It was an act Rogue felt no guilt over. Sting was the one who'd initiated their split, and as Sting was going to learn if his efforts kept him from miscarrying a third time, nothing sucked worse than being a pregnant virgin. Besides, he'd been dating Natsu at the time, and he was allowed to sleep with his own boyfriend.

"I'll make soup," Rogue announced. "If you're taking it easy the next couple weeks, then you look after Alex and I'll focus on work."

A muffled thank you drifted out from beneath the pillow.

"It's not a big deal. But Sting… whatever happens, don't beat yourself up over it."


	2. Chapter 2

The hum of the microwave drowned out the sounds of vomiting in the master bathroom, which was why Rogue kept the microwave running even after he'd finished reheating the previous night's leftovers. He only stopped it when he turned the faucet on to wash the dishes he'd made, letting the water cover up the noise instead.

Was it insensitive of him to try so hard to ignore Sting's suffering? Yes. Obviously. Especially considering that he'd had a bout of morning sickness here and there throughout his own pregnancy. But his had manifested more as a general queasiness at the start of the day, and he'd only thrown up when an absolutely terrible scent hit him. In the past week Sting's dry heaving had become Rogue's alarm clock. Breakfast was out of the question, and later meals could be a battle.

While the water was running, Rogue filled a pot and minced ginger, setting that on the stove to boil. In the interest of not completely abandoning Sting to his symptoms, he figured he owed it to Sting to brew something to help settle the blond's stomach.

Alex sat on the counter, watching her mother work. She'd been given a bright yellow plastic knife and a lettuce leaf to play-cook with while Rogue prepared lunch. Vegetables, he'd found, were easier on Sting's stomach than meat. And rinsing out all the individual lettuce leaves or cilantro or whatever it was that he chose to work with was a wonderfully innocent looking way to drown out the noise of Sting's sickness. He had been getting more and more creative with different salad recipes over the course of the week.

It helped his that he needed to improvise a lot with ingredients. The lettuce had been a splurge. If he didn't work soon, they would have to dip into the money set aside to pay rent in order to buy more groceries. And it wasn't like Sting was going out on a job any time in the near future. Even if he wasn't so worried about losing this third baby, his pregnancy was off to so rough a start that Rogue wouldn't dream of letting him go out on any job. Much less the combat heavy fair that the two of them were specialized for.

With the water running, he didn't hear the noises from the bathroom stop, but he looked up from slicing lettuce and saw Sting there.

"How are you holding up?"

"I didn't see my intestines in the toilet, so I don't think I threw up _everything_," Sting reported. "I think this baby hates me. I don't know what I did to them, but they must hate me."

"they haven't developed enough to have a functioning brain, Sting. I don't think the baby is capable of hate yet."

Sting grunted and sat down at the kitchen table, trying to watch Rogue without looking at the food.

"Sting?"

"Yes."

"You're being ridiculous."

Sting sighed and shut his eyes, resting his forehead against the back of his chair. "I know. I know. I just… I don't feel good. And Alex adores you even though you had to go through this too, so I'm talking nonsense, aren't I?"

"Was Rogue sick all the time?" Frosch, who had been playing with her own toy knife alongside Alex, asked. "Fro doesn't remember him having to cling to the toilet like Sting does."

"I had morning sickness too," Rogue protested. Not that his compared to Sting's, but he didn't want Sting to—

"You didn't have it this bad?"

Crap. "Well… No, but that's… Sting?"

The blond had already gone pale, and looked down at the floor, no doubt wondering if this was another sign that his body wasn't meant to carry a child. Really, the fact that he was male ought to have been sign enough. But Alex came out healthy, and Rogue knew that Sting had hoped to see lightning strike twice.

He pulled the pot off the stove, straining the ginger chunks out and pouring a mug of warm tea for Sting.

"Here," he said, setting it down next to the blond. "This should help you keep lunch down. I'll store the rest in the fridge. Heat it up whenever you feel sick."

Sting picked the mug up and stared at it, scrunching his nose in distaste. Most of the battle with lunch was getting Sting to keep the food down, but getting him to eat when he didn't feel well also took some effort.

"Drink it, Sting. It will help."

"It doesn't smell good."

"Drink it or I'm sleeping on the couch tonight."

On the outside that might have sounded like an odd threat, but there was a rational behind it. Rogue wouldn't dare put his sick, pregnant lover on the too short couch. But Sting didn't like the idea of Rogue being uncomfortable overnight either, so he would try to avoid making Rogue feel the need to threaten as much. More importantly, though, the couch was too small for both of them to sleep on. Even early on in their relationship, Sting had loved sneaking into Rogue's bed and cuddling up with him to go to sleep. Since officially starting a family together and sharing a bed around the clock, Sting could hardly bare to be without Rogue in bed anymore. In fact, Rogue found himself napping alongside Sting lately when he still had energy to burn for the sake of helping Sting nap more comfortably.

Sting pouted, and for a moment Rogue worried he might still resist. Then the blond picked up his ginger tea and began to nurse it.

Rogue scooped Alex off the counter and set her in her highchair before gathering up lunch and placing it on the table. Before sitting down, he also gave Alex a cherry tomato to play with, and was unsurprised to see her throw it on the floor and giggle before he could even pull his chair out.

Too lazy to bend over and pick it up, he let a shadow snatch the tomato and pull it under, only for it to pop back up in front of Alex. She squealed with delight and threw it again, and Rogue picked the much more mundane bending over and picking it up to return it to her, giving it a roll in the hopes that she might decide to do something different with the tomato if she had an example to follow.

He sat down and looked back at her just in time to see her roll the tomato off the table.

"Lector, get that," Sting instructed.

The exceed took over entertaining the toddler while Rogue ate and Sting nursed his drink. When Rogue finished he got in on the game, adding a few more tomatoes for Alex to make them chase around the room. Sting sat and watched, eventually taking a test bite a his salad and, after he didn't throw it back up, slowly eating the rest.

When he stood and carried his dishes to the sink, Rogue stepped away from the tomato game to check over him. Seeing nothing obviously wrong, he asked, "Feeling better?"

"A little. I don't remember it being so bad with… with the first one."

"Maybe it's a good sign. The baby's thriving in there, so you're actually feeling the symptoms the way your ought to."

"Maybe it's a bad sign. Things are going to go even worse this time."

The worst pregnancy Rogue could imagine was one where the strain of carrying a child took Sting from him, but that wasn't a fear he dared voice. For as desperately as Sting wanted this second child, anything other than encouragement was taken as a personal attack. And having already forbade that Sting make a fourth attempt, Rogue dared not hint in any way that he actively didn't want Sting to be pregnant at all.

Alex was a joy, he reminded himself, and that was in spite of how much he'd hated being pregnant with her. Once he had time to get excited for this new baby, to get to know them, he would be as hopeful that they would survive and be born into the world as Sting was.

But just then, the only one he could worry about is Sting.

"Do you mind doing dishes? I still feel worn out from… sitting… I want to lie down."

Rogue nodded. "Will you want any company?"

"I wouldn't mind it."

"Lector? Frosch? Come get me if you need any help with Alex," Rogue instructed.

They had to pause a moment and process this instruction, despite Sting having given the same one word for word quite often.

Sting was the one was child rearing came naturally to. That might have had something to do with his having a far greater desire for a second child than Rogue did, come to think of it. While Rogue wasn't a _terrible_ mother by and stretch, he'd had quite a bit of learning to do when it came to managing Alex, and it had always been Sting that he and the exceed deferred to whenever the little girl threw something unexpected at them.

Except for the past three weeks Sting had done almost nothing. The blond was so terrified of the possibility that he would lose this latest child that he only got out of bed to take care of basic bodily needs. While Rogue was willing to oblige that, at least for a little while, it all but completely took Sting out of the picture when it came to taking care of Alex.

Sooner or later the pregnancy would either meet another premature end, or it would last long enough for Rogue to claim that this one was sticking well enough that it was safe for Sting to try and do a little more. Maybe not guild work, but a hand around the house would be nice. Being the primary parent for Alex on top of the one everyone else was financially dependent on was asking a bit much. How Erza and Macao managed as single parents was beyond him.

The first miscarriage had come at the one month mark. At week five, Rogue decided, he was going to tell Sting to get his butt out of bed and stay up for the full day. But until then, for Sting's sake, he could try to be obliging.

He followed Sting into the bedroom, shucking off excess clothes by the door, and crawled into bed alongside the blond. He'd only gotten himself into bed a few seconds ago, but Sting had already gotten himself wrapped up in a downy comforter and was sinking into his pillow. Rogue had to do a bit of finagling to get himself into the comforter too.

"Thanks," Sting murmured.

"No problem. We can't do this tomorrow, though."

Sting opened his eyes halfway, not overly concerned, but not content. "Am I in trouble?"

"No. I need to work."

"Oh… Alex—"

"I'll see if Erza can babysit. We help with Kiseki often enough that it shouldn't be a problem, so long as she isn't working."

At the same time that Rogue had been pregnant with Alex, Erza's secret lover had been expecting a boy of his own. Since Jellal hadn't been able to stay in one place and take care of the newborn, Erza was effectively a single parent. Her lover's sporadic visits to see how the two of them were doing weren't enough to lighten the burden of parenthood. As the other newer parents at the guild, Sting and Rogue regularly lent a hand. Their assistance made her the first to forgive the two of them for not only dragging Natsu into their relationship drama, but for deciding to stick to the Fairy Tail guild when the whole mess resolved with Natsu brokenhearted.

(In all fairness to the members who were still a little sore about that, they really _shouldn't_ have done that to Natsu, even if he gave them his blessings.)

"She might be gone. Christmas is coming up. If she doesn't have enough set aside for Kiseki and Jellal…"

"I'm sure Jellal visiting _is_ Kiseki's present," Rogue said, although he was also sure that Erza planned to splurge on cake, and had been stockpiling toys for the boy. Thank goodness he'd already set aside gifts for Alex and the exceed. "And I would be surprised if her gift for Jellal costs anything."

"We have to do that some time before this baby is born."

"Yeah."

"It _will_ be born."

Maybe. "Here's hoping."

"You were pregnant over Christmas, right? How miserable was it?"

"With you not there?"

Actually, it hadn't been that bad at all. That was before the competition between Sting and Natsu _really_ heated up, and Rogue had spent a pleasant evening with his then boyfriend Natsu, enjoying gifts and sweets and not fretting too much about how the ex who's child he was pregnant with was trying to win him back. But considering that his ex did win him back, that wasn't the nicest thing to admit.

"I would probably get sick just smelling eggnog right now…"

"Good. Eggnog has alcohol in it."

"Oh. No wonder we don't have any. I thought at least Alex…"

"I'm not giving our daughter alcohol any more than I'm giving it to you. She's fine with candy canes. And we borrowed the oven at the guild for gingerbread. I wasn't sure how you'd handle the smell."

"Oh… thanks. You've been busy, haven't you? Neither of us have gotten decorations up."

"I'll get something thrown together." Rogue kissed Sting on the forehead. "If you can't enjoy any foods over Christmas, I'll at least make sure it looks exactly as it should."


	3. Chapter 3

Rogue was skeptical of Sting's plan to have Christmas evening to themselves, but followed the blond's orders and gave their wound up toddler another candy cane. She could hardly keep from squirming when they opened presents, squealing with delight at the cat plush that Sting had picked out for her the month before.

The exceed got two gifts. A set of toy frogs for Frosch, and a new vest for Lector. Both were also given a packet of catnip, which they pretended didn't make them go crazy, as an apology for being expected to help manage Alex while she was in the midst of a sugar high. Naturally, they couldn't have any until after they'd helped with Alex, but the promise of catnip was a strong lure.

For as long as Sting had stayed in bed, Rogue would have been happy to say that his present was Sting getting up and hanging out by the tree while Alex played with her toy, sticking a new candy cane in his mouth for each one they gave her. But Sting promised he had something special, something _secret_, for Rogue that night.

"Your virginity?"

"If you'd like that too."

Good. Rogue hadn't offered again since Sting became pregnant. If the blond was done fretting over the possibility of losing the baby during a moment of passion, then they could finally consummate their relationship. They'd already been together for a decade, had a biological child, and were expecting another. It was beyond overdue.

Alex wasn't done with her candy cane yet, but Sting bit to pieces and began sucking on another.

"I think it's a Christmas miracle," Rogue decided.

Sting grinned. "The five of us being together?"

"No. Your being able to stomach all that sugar."

His grin fell only a moment. Then it occurred to Sting that, actually, that was a miracle. For the past two weeks his morning sickness had ranged from almost bearable to so severe he wanted to die. Only four days ago he'd struggled with even water. He'd managed to keep it down after a few hours, but not before the possibility had been raised that he might need to go to the hospital.

"I don't feel _great_, but I don't think I'm about to puke. Let's hope that holds up. Got anything good planned for dinner?"

"Nothing special. But if you're up for it, I can do something fancy."

Fancy-ish. On the assumption that Sting wouldn't be able to eat much, Rogue had skipped out on purchasing most standard Christmas staples. But they had a chicken. And potatoes and cranberries. And a couple different vegetables that he thought he might be able to mix up in a way to make them look interesting.

If he got started soon, he could even have a desert ready. A pie. He could bake it and then, while it cooled and the oven was still hot, get a chicken cooked.

"Don't go out of your way. We don't know for sure that I'll be able to eat it," Sting reminded him, giving his stomach an awkward rub. He was a little worried that touching his stomach might irritate it. And some paranoid part of him that had spawned from losing his first baby and only grown after the second worried that even that gentle touch might somehow harm the third.

"I'll keep tea on hand. And try not to eat too much sugar." Rogue leaned forward and gave Sting a kiss on the cheek. "No more candy canes. I don't want you to have a sugar crash before Alex does."

"But you don't care if I crash after her?"

Rogue grinned. "Well, even if that happens, I won't be stuck keeping her under control without you to help."

"You won't get my gift then either."

"It will still be there tomorrow. Leaving me on my own with Alex can never be undone."

He stood and brushed off his clothes, which had managed to pick up a few pine needles from their dying Christmas tree. It was good that Alex was a person and not a plant, because neither Sting nor Rogue had any idea how to care for those.

Sting, still laughing at his last comment, stayed on the floor and played with Alex, letting her lead him through the scenario she had created in which Lector was an evil guild master, and her daddy and new kitty had to overthrow him. Considering that they worked for Makarov, the two probably ought not to encourage a fantasy with such a villain. But then considering they used to work for Genma, neither of them wanted to press the notion that the master was always right.

They'd spent an awfully long time indulging Alex as she went through her stocking and rolled around on the floor with her new toy. Rogue found himself scrambling to get lunch ready while prepping for dinner, and called everyone over to eat during a reprieve in dinner prep.

It was Lector, not Sting, who set Alex in her highchair while Rogue set everyone's food on the table. So the blond hadn't totally abandon caution about too much activity. But he was up, and that was an improvement. Rogue decided not to comment, and instead gave Sting an encouraging smile when he handed the boy his lunch, complete with ginger tea.

"Do I need this? I don't feel _awful_."

"You said you don't feel great either, right? Drink it. It can only help."

Ginger tea and water had been the only things Sting had to drink for the past two weeks, and he made a face at the mug, but obliged. Rogue was putting a lot of work into a last minute dinner that they didn't think he would have been able to eat, and if the tea would help ensure that Rogue's efforts didn't go to waste, then he would take it.

Sting slowed down on the candy, conscious of the fact that he needed to be in a state where he could appreciate Rogue's efforts. After all, for someone who loathed cooking, Rogue made a lot of special meals for him. An hour before dinner, he cut off Alex's supply of candy canes too. She still squirmed when it was time for her to go into her highchair, though. She'd hardly stopped moving all afternoon. Once or twice, she'd even got Sting to move fast. Someone had to catch her when she misjudged a jump from one couch to the next.

Rogue gave her a few fine chopped pieces of chicken and veggies, and a plate of mashed potatoes that made Sting, the one who usually washed Alex, grimace. Only half of that would make it into her mouth. The rest he would be scrubbing out of her hair before they got her to bed.

Seeing Sting's face fall, Lector waved for him to look away. "We have her after dinner. You shouldn't worry about her."

"Fro thinks so too."

Well… he did worry a little about Frosch looking after his daughter, but Lector more or less knew what to do.

Sting turned his focus to his own food, and his stomach did a flip looking at it. Cranberry sauce was drizzled over the potato. The vegetable he now saw was a stir-fried mix of various leafy greens with sauteed garlic tossed in. And while Alex had been given a piece of plain white chicken, his and Rogue's meat had some sort of sauce glazed over it that, from scent, would be mildly spicy.

If Sting hadn't been pregnant, he was sure it would have smelled heavenly.

But it didn't smell so bad to his pregnant nose that he had to rush to the bathroom to vomit, and Rogue had worked hard on this dinner. And it had been too long since he had a real meal. Sting plastered on a smile for his lover and took a bite of the chicken. "I'm always amazed by how you can make stuff like this in so little time."

"It took half the day."

"It would take me years to make anything this good."

"Well, I've had years of practice." The smile Rogue returned Sting's with was genuine. "But I'm glad you like it."

Sting forced himself to swallow, and drank the new cup of ginger tea that Rogue had set out for him without needing to be prompted.

The pie, which Rogue had pulled out of the oven not too long before dinner, had cooled to a decent temperature by the time Sting finished off the chicken and greens, by which point Rogue was well done with his own dinner. He gave Sting a hesitant once over, assessing him for obvious illness, then shrugged and set the pie on the table before looking for a knife to cut it with. He made the darn thing. Even if Sting looked like he was struggling, he was keeping everything down so far. And should Sting decide not to eat anymore, Rogue at least was going to enjoy it.

But when he turned back, he saw that Sting's eating had picked back up. The potatoes and cranberry, it seemed, were easier on him.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think that baby only lets you keep your food when you keep it supplied with sugar."

"That wouldn't be awful. You can pick up a stock of candy canes when they go on sale."

"Careful. Jellal overdid it on the sweets when he was pregnant, and he said that Kiseki never stopped moving because of it."

"Bull."

"Alex certainly felt more active whenever I had something with too much sugar in it."

"Well… that's just fine," Sting decided. "I _want_ to feel this baby. As much as possible. I want them to squirm and kick and do cartwheels so I know they're alright."

"True. And it means you should be able to manage the pie."

Sting laughed at that. "You don't want your work to go to waste, do you? Alright. Cut me a slice."

It was apple, and Rogue had been generous with the cinnamon while putting it together. He waited to watch Sting take a bite, and smile, before trying it himself.

"I seriously need to learn to cook. I want to treat you like this."

"Just so long as you practice at… at the guild."

He'd almost said to practice at Natsu's. The two had wordlessly agreed when they got back together that it would be best to do as little with Natsu as possible. The fire slayer had made this easy, since he'd been as keen on avoiding Rogue as Rogue was him. Maybe if their relationship had fallen apart the usual way. Too many different interests or values. They hadn't been a perfect couple. They never reached the point where they were comfortable enough with one another that they no longer stressed over pleasing the other. But things between them hadn't been bad. The only issue, really, was that Sting hadn't been willing to give Rogue up without a fight. And even if Natsu backed out of the battle eventually, it hadn't been because he was no longer in love. Fighting for Rogue, and losing battles, had left too many wounds on his heart. Surrendering completely, Rogue noticed, also hadn't healed them as fast as Natsu hoped.

Avoiding him had initially been a courtesy, but it had become a habit. For the two of them to talk with him now felt awkward. They'd chosen to go back to how things were, as much as they could. The two of them together, and Natsu an outsider they respected. Natsu was more sentimental than that. Rogue had seen the souvenirs he collected. He didn't doubt there was still something from every date they went on still saved in Natsu's house, even if Natsu had moved on to a new girlfriend.

"You have to practice at the guild. If you burn the apartment down, Alex will have to sleep on the streets."

"Just because I always burn the food doesn't mean I wreck the whole kitchen."

"The more times you try, the more chances you'll have." Rogue grinned so Sting could know he was only teasing.

"The more times I'll have to get better at not burning things."

"Sting, I can set a toaster up _for_ you, and when you put bread in and push the button, it comes out black."

"Oh… I didn't realize I was supposed to use your settings."

That explained a lot.

"Well, it looks like Alex is ready to lay down," Rogue said. "I'll get her to bed. And then I believe you had a special gift for me?"

"Oh! Right!" Sting took another bite of the pie before standing so fast he knocked his chair over. "It's in our room. Don't come in until I say it's ready. No peeking."

"Yes, sir."

While Sting actually scrambled down the hall like his old self to set up whatever surprise he must have hidden months ago, Rogue lifted Alex out of her chair and carried her back to her room. She still slept in a crib. Once Sting's baby was born, if it was born, they would graduate her to a kiddie bed, and the baby would have her old crib. They would probably need to find a new house too. Unless they wanted the newborn and what would then be a three year old sharing a bedroom.

Alex was asleep before her mashed potato covered head hit the pillow. Rogue ushered Frosch and Lector into her room to take care of the potato and watch over her, then went across the hall to knock on his own bedroom door.

"One second!"

Rogue counted to one, then opened the door.

Perhaps he shouldn't have harassed Sting that way. The blond started when the door opened, fumbling and nearly falling off the bed. Wouldn't it just be perfect for Sting to hurt himself on his first day or not acting paranoid about causing any harm to his child?

"When I say 'one second' what I really mean is I need another minute."

"You should have said 'one minute' in that case," Rogue said, looking around the room.

Sting had decorated awfully fast. Green and red streamers, which had probably appealed to him because of their gaudy bright colors, were taped up everywhere. Even if they'd joked about tonight being the night they finally did it, that was a total mood killer. But the way he grinned, looking so pleased with himself as he secured the last streamer, Rogue dared not remind Sting that they had vastly different tastes in decorations.

The blond slid down from the bed and reached under with his foot, dragging out a box that was marked off as containing old letters Rogue had written to Sting. Those letters had included bad poems and cheesy, heartfelt confessions that Rogue had used to assure Sting that he really did care in the early stages of their relationship, back when he didn't know how to say "I love you" to Sting's face, and before Sting knew how to pick those three words up from Rogue's actions, even when they went unsaid.

Since the letters meant so much to Sting, Rogue had refrained from looking at them. If he read those mortifying words, he wasn't sure he could be trusted not to set the whole stack of pages on fire.

Thankfully, Sting had deliberately mislabeled the box. He kicked it open to reveal… another box. This one painted bright red and gold, and tied with a bow.

"Can you pull that out?" Sting asked. "My stomach's been good all day. I'd hate to upset it by bending down…"

Rogue pulled the box out of the box and set it on the bed, waiting for Stings nod of approval before undoing the ribbon and opening his present.

Chocolate. White and milk and dark chocolates with frosting, decorated in all manner of shape. One looked like Frosch. Another like a dragon. Some were simple hearts. Beneath the sweetness, Rogue could smell hints that a few of the pieces might have been burnt. A few, but not all, which meant…

"You made these?"

Sting nodded.

"Thanks you. It must have taken a lot of practice."

"I got Mira to come over and help when you went away to work. It took all day."

"Good thing you seem to have a high tolerance for sugar, then."

Realizing what would have happened had his morning sickness prevented him from making the sweets, Sting paled. They were on a tighter budget while he didn't work and made Rogue look after Alex, and he'd set nothing aside to buy a present last minute should his plans have failed.

Rogue chuckled. "Mind if I try one now?"

"Well, the point of chocolate is that you eat it."

Popping one of the hearts into his mouth, Rogue closed the box and retied the ribbon, setting the rest on his nightstand for later.

"I'm going to get better at cooking," Sting declared. "I know you said you'd rather not have me burn down the house or poison everyone with smoke, or waste food, but I want to be able to make some of the nice things for you that you always prepare for me."

"I'd better get back to work then, shouldn't I? It's cheaper to buy things in bulk, but we're still going to burn through a lot of food."

"Was… was that a _pun_?"

"Uh…" Rogue blushed, going back over his word. "No pun intended."

Sting laughed and gave Rogue a kiss, stealing a taste of the chocolate when he did. It wasn't as good as Rogue's homemade desserts, but it wasn't awful. Rogue, at least, tasted better than any sweet.

"I'm going to treat you," Sting insisted. "For all the times you treated me, and for how wonderful you've been this past month, even after how I…" How I turned you away when you were pregnant… "Well, we made it a month. The baby's still here. I wouldn't want to take any jobs, but I _should_ be able to do more around the house. So since I'm not able to help with work, I'm going to make everything special for you at home. Okay?"

Rogue kissed back, biting gently at Sting's lip and leaving a chocolate smear when he pulled away. "You don't have to push yourself."

"But you don't like cooking, right?"

"No. But I like to make you smile."


	4. Chapter 4

It was two more weeks, exactly when Rogue ran out of chocolate, before Sting decided that the baby was definitely there to stay. A permanent resident, he called it. Having endured nine months of pregnancy himself, Rogue fond the idea of an unborn child taking up _permanent_ residence to be horrifying, but Sting seemed to be oblivious to this.

Since Sting now felt confident about the baby's odds of survival, he declared that he was ready to graduate from helping out around the house to actually walking from home to the guild. All three blocks. It was close enough for them to tell by sent who showed up on any given day.

It was also close enough that Natsu could no doubt smell them whenever he went to the guild. Rogue had almost turned down the apartment when he realized that, but it was such an ideal size. And when they'd first moved in, Sting was still recovering from being hit by a magic four-wheeler. An apartment that wouldn't require him to travel far had seemed ideal.

One nice thing about Fairy Tail that Rogue couldn't say for his old guild was that they were a much more laid back place. If he'd brought Alex to Sabertooth, Genma would have chased him off the premise, but she was always well received at Fairy Tail.

Their trip to the guild was delayed slightly. Sting attempted eating breakfast first. When that didn't go over well, Rogue had him wait a bit, then drink orange juice for the sake of getting something into him before he was up an about. Once the blond had kind of had something to start his day, they set out.

Sting having not left the house in six weeks, Rogue was unsurprised to see the guild pause when they walked in. After the guild's collective hesitation, Gray called out, "Yo! Sting! It's been a while. I was starting to think you finally pushed Rogue too far and he stuffed your body into a closet."

Sting smiled back and tried to say something funny in response, but instead gagged on the smell of alcohol everywhere. So Rogue took over for him.

"I would _never_ do that. I'd leave the body somewhere where I won't have to smell it."

That got a few chuckles, but a fair few people were now watching Sting with concern. Rogue glanced back at him too, gaging how capable of answering questions without vomiting the blond looked. Not very. Dammit. If it ended up falling to Rogue, then everyone in the guild would end up focused specifically on him.

He glanced down to Lector for help, and the cat nodded and flew up to Sting's shoulder, ready to take any questions.

"Is he alright?"

"Sting's stomach is bothering him," Lector explained. "And there's probably a smell somewhere around here that isn't helping."

"Alcohol," Rogue suggested. "Sting, do you want to come back later?"

Sting shook his head. "It's fine. I…" He pause, and had to take a deep breath to keep his juice from coming back up "I want to do this today."

"Um… If Sting isn't feeling well, maybe I can help," Wendy piped up, and Rogue grabbed Sting's arm and led the blond over to her.

Gray and Mira, the two members who had taken Sting's side in the fight over Rogue, came to sit beside them while Wendy worked on him. It wasn't that they were the only ones who cared. Being Fairy Tail, the whole guild respected and cared for its members. But there was a sort of rule that most everyone obeyed when Sting, Rogue, and Natsu were all present. Just like Sting and Rogue avoided Natsu if they could help it, the other guild members avoided looking too encouraging of their relationship when Natsu was around. Only Gray and Mira, who had been known to support Rogue and Sting together even before they reunited, and for whom it would have been too obvious that they were being sensitive to Natsu if they stopped doing so, were not required to act under this rule. Them and Erza, who they'd made too many babysitting deals with for her to care about their melodrama with Natsu, but she seemed not to be there.

After two years it seemed to Rogue like that ought to have changed. But then he and Sting were no keener on addressing the elephant in the room with Natsu, so if the rest of the guild was trying to avoid a confrontation on that subject too, who was he to complain?

"Have you been sick for a while?" Gray asked. "It really isn't like you to go so long without showing up, and Rogue's been around, so it couldn't be that the two of you went off on a long job or a third honeymoon or something. I always figured you would shrivel up from lack of attention if you went too long without coming here and making a spectacle of yourself."

"_Third_ honeymoon?" Rogue asked, suddenly realizing that in the chaos that had followed Sting's accident with the four-wheeler, they'd forgotten about the option of marriage entirely.

"Sting's sick," Fro explained, since neither slayer seemed concerned with answering Gray's questions. "He's been throwing up for weeks."

"For weeks?" Wendy gasped. "Sting, you should have come earlier! I was only decreasing you nausea. If you let me look for the source of the infections—"

"It's fine," Sting cut in. "Thanks. I feel a lot better."

"But… But if you don't let me tackle the cause, you're probably going to feel bad again in a few hours…"

"I can live with that."

Climbing onto the table and standing up so that everyone in the guild could get a good look at him, Sting grinned down at Gray. "Ready to watch me make a spectacle of myself?"

"Do I have to?"

"Yes." Sting cupped his hands over his mouth and yelled, "Hey! Everybody! I'm pregnant!"

Rogue cringed and looked away. It was different for Sting, who had sought out the condition, and who had a loving, mostly supportive significant other with him, but Rogue remembered how humiliating the situation had been for him. The first pregnant male he'd ever heard of, cast aside by his lover and appealing to people's pity for work and shelter. He imagined himself broadcasting that situation as brazenly as Sting just had and turned bright red.

There was another pause from the guild as this message sank in and they realized why Sting had looked so green before, followed by a mix of laughs and congratulations.

They all knew about the first attempt. Sting had gone around sharing word of it on day one. They all knew how that attempt ended too. The second hadn't lasted long enough for Sting to work up the nerve to tell everyone, but everyone had seen him down after the second miscarriage, and a few might have guessed what happened. In either case, it wasn't such unexpected news that the guild didn't know how to take it, nor did most of them realize how likely this was, in Rogue's mind, to end badly.

When Sting climbed back down from the table and sat between Rogue and Wendy, Mira reached across the younger girl to put a reassuring hand on his knee.

"I hope it goes well this time. But if not, we're all here for you."

It took a special person to say that when most of the guild had been avoiding him a second earlier. Of course, now that Sting made that declaration, they had an excuse to ignore the unofficial 'no being nice while Natsu is around' rule.

Rogue looked around at them. Several had also taken it as an excuse for more beer, shouting out toasts. It was, by and large, a pretty positive reception, although he hoped Sting couldn't hear that Mira wasn't the only one worried that he might lose the child again.

Silly. Sting's hearing was as good as his own. Of course he heard. And he lowered his chin a little, still smiling, but no longer as happy.

At least he didn't see what Rogue did.

Cana bent down to pick up another barrel of wine, and in the gap she created Rogue caught a glimpse of Natsu, grimacing back at him. He froze, unable to look away.

Natsu seemed frozen too, jolting when Lucy took his hand and whispered something so softly it was lost in the din of everyone else's cheers. Natsu glanced at her, looked back at Rogue, and then Cana straightened, holding the barrel above her to chug it, and Rogue looked away.

"H-hey… alcohol fumes aren't bad for me, are they?" Sting asked.

"I served that alcohol while Alex was on the way, and she came out alright," Rogue assured him. Sting laughed at that, but to Rogue it sounded forced. All those people whispering had made Sting paranoid about a miscarriage again. "They serve plenty of items here without alcohol in them. Want to get something while we have Wendy around to make sure it stays down?"

Sting nodded.

Seeing that it was her time to shine, Mira took her hand from his knee and stood. She reached down the front of her dress and pulled out a notepad, and recent quirk she'd added to her table waiting services that Rogue was sure increased her tips, and he out a pen. "You know the breakfast menu, right?"

"Yeah. Maybe an omellet?"

"With anything in it?" she asked, and all of the conversation immediately around them dropped.

This was the point, in Rogue's pregnancy, where he would have glared at anyone who expected him to order something crazy. Like pickles and peaches with whipped cream on top. Sure, there had been times where he'd really wanted something that wasn't to _his_ usual tastes, but never anything that no sane person would ask for.

"Cheese and green pepper," Sting said, not caring about everyone watching. "Oh! And garlic."

Mira's pen stopped.

"Garlic?"

"Garlic."

"We can do that… Powder or chopped?"

"Chopped."

Then again, Rogue's morning sickness has never troubled him so badly as Sting's did. Rogue bit his lip to keep from smirking. He needed to not compare the two of them so much.

-o-

Sting's garlic omelet came, and Rogue thanked the stars that his pregnant lover hadn't ordered it with onion to boot. He could only stand so many clashing smells. But Sting devoured it. And if he got a full meal without the toilet getting it five minutes later, then Rogue was happy with that.

Having a substantive amount of food in him without needing to depend on sugar did wonders. The occasional whisper of concern still hit their ears, but Sting was able to brush it off. This baby had made it to the six week mark. And he had eaten his whole omelet and not gotten sick. So he had a good feeling about this one's odds of making it all the way.

Rogue, on the other hand, had a bad feeling about the baby making it. Sure, the idea of this second child made Sting happy. So very happy. Seeing him laugh and smile as people wished him luck and offered to help with names, Rogue couldn't help but smile too. But a part of his still worried. Sting's body was by no means frail, but he'd been injured so badly before, and he _knew_ that sometimes a fight would cause those old injuries to act up. Carrying a child to term was a tremendous physical stress. And Rogue didn't doubt that his experience in that aspect of pregnancy would be vastly different from Sting's too. Because he'd had no serious injuries that could flare back up with a vengeance when under that persistent stress.

He excused himself, going over to check out the jobs board. Now that Sting was back to taking care of Alex, Rogue needed to look for work more often. Way more often. He had a sinking feeling that he would probably be taking a lot of time off from work to help look after Sting in the near future.

Something he could do on his own… or maybe something he could do quickly with Erza. He would hate to saddle Sting with two toddlers, but if there was a high enough paying job, then he knew Sting would understand.

He reached out for one that looked promising, but his hand froze when he heard a voice he'd always felt some anxiety over.

"Rogue, congratulations."

He looked to his left, where Lucy stood, smiling at him, and forced himself to smile back.

"Are you excited to be the father for a change?"

"It will be a hassle, to try and teach two little kids that they have the same parents, but different moms and dads," Rogue said. "We might tell this new one that I'm his mother for simplicity's sake."

"I hadn't thought of that. Not that it will ever be a problem for me, but… well…"

"You have a boyfriend now?"

"Natsu," she told him. "Actually, for the past few months. I hadn't told anyone else yet. I thought… since the two of you… that maybe I should tell you first."

That didn't surprise him. Back when he and Natsu had dated—while living together—Rogue had regularly found himself jealous about how often Natsu went to hang out at Lucy's house. He'd even tried to use that behavior to defend his sneaking off to still see Sting, even though Natsu had been a far more loyal boyfriend to Rogue than Rogue had been to him.

"That's nice. I wish the two of you the best of luck."

"You're not upset?"

"I went back with Sting. Even if I was, I hardly have any right to fuss over Natsu seeing someone else."

She sighed in relief. "You two need to talk again, you know. We're happy to have you and Sting here, but so long as things are awkward between you and Natsu, it's awkward for all of us."

Rogue grabbed the job he wanted from the board before saying, "If Natsu wants to come and talk to me, I'm not going to turn him away."

"You're not going to hurt his feelings, Rogue. It's been two years. He's had time to heal."

Rogue looked past Lucy to Natsu, who grimaced again and looked away.

"Alright. Then let him know he's free to visit whenever he wants."

He sincerely hoped she didn't.

He registered the job and went to tell Sting, who had decided to stay for lunch, since Wendy was still there to help with his morning sickness.

"Alright. I should be back tomorrow. There's ginger tea in the fridge for you, if you start to feel sick when you get home. Lector knows how to heat it up."

"Rogue, I can reheat tea without blowing the kitchen up."

"I would prefer not to risk that. Lector knows how to heat it up. And there's beef in the freezer. Pull it out in the morning so it will be thawed when I get back, alright?"

"Can do. Anything else I need to know?"

Natsu might show up. He probably won't, but I just gave out an invite. Don't say anything to make things worse between us. Please don't. I'm not worried because I regret letting him go. I wish things were normal between us, but it's you that I love. Please, if he shows up, don't let things get any worse.

"No." Rogue forced himself to smile. "You know more about looking after Alex than me, so there's no sense in me giving instruction there."

Sting laughed. "Alright. You take care."

"You too. Don't try to handle the tea yourself. Really. I'd hate to come home and learn that you killed yourself in a house fire."

"Oh, go get yourself beaten up then, you jerk.

Grinning, Rogue bent over and kissed Sting.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll count the seconds until you're back."


	5. Chapter 5

Sting's mornings had become a wretchedly unpleasant routine. One that consistently began with a bout of dry wretching. It left him trembling, his throat raw, his stomach empty but aching so badly that he had to remind himself he needed to fill it.

Whether Rogue was there to help take care of him or not, he'd learned the routine. Warm up ginger tea. Or wait for his lover or Lector to brew it for him. Drink. Rest a few minutes. Have a glass of orange juice. If that stayed down, There were homemade muffins in the fridge. Rogue had sweetened them, since that seemed to help, and made sure to always have some kind of fruit mixed into the batter. (The current batch was apple.) Should those run out while Rogue was away, there was a bakery a block down the street that sold doughnuts, and Lector and Frosch could run down there and buy Sting a batch.

Rogue had been away often, lately. Sting sometime found himself eating the muffins at lunch and even dinner time, when he looked at the leftover Rogue had stocked for him and felt queasy imagining himself eating them, and he ended up either sending the cats for doughnuts or going to buy them himself more often than he liked to admit.

He understood the logic behind Rogue being gone. They had another kid on the way and one of them was no longer helping to support the family financially. Add to that how close they came to going broke when he first became pregnant, and it made sense to Sting that Rogue try and gather up a savings for them to fall back on should anything happen. That didn't mean he didn't hate it. Ever since the incident years ago where Rogue had come home claiming to be pregnant despite them having never slept together, ever since Sting, feeling betrayed, had turned Rogue away and then felt for the first time what it was like to be alone, Sting hated being apart from Rogue for too long. That their separation had resulted in Rogue quickly attaching himself to Natsu didn't make Sting feel any better. He didn't doubt that Rogue was his and his alone, but that shock when he'd gone to apologize to Rogue and seen that the love of his life had turned to someone else in his absence still resurfaced whenever they were apart too long.

At least Rogue tried not to be gone for too long, taking jobs that he could finish before nightfall, so he was usually there to crawl into bed for Sting to snuggle with.

Except Rogue had agreed to go on a three day escort job with Gray. For as high as it was paying, Sting didn't blame him. He did plan on guilting Rogue into staying put for a little while once he came home, but he didn't blame him for taking the job.

He was curled up on the couch, munching on a chocolate glazed doughnut and watching Alex and Frosch's tea party, when he caught an unpleasant scent and realized that there was a second disadvantage to Rogue taking that job with Gray. He'd split up Gray's team in doing so, making the rest of his team mates less likely to go out on some job or another until they returned.

The upside to that was that it meant Erza was more likely to be around to come and help if Sting was so sick he couldn't properly look after Alex. The very massive downside was that Natsu was prone to hanging around town.

Sting didn't need to get up and open the door to know who knocked, but Lector and Alex looked curious. Also, making Natsu wait at the door was a good way to get your door kicked in.

He forced himself up and over to the door, and his hand hesitated there. While the part of him that idolized Natsu growing up hadn't died out completely, things hadn't been… smooth between them. Really, the whole of the Grand Magic Games had been a disaster on that front. One that was eclipsed by the two of them fighting over Rogue for the next nine months after. They'd parted on such bad terms that they hadn't spoken or even deliberately maintained eye contact in the two years since.

So what was Natsu doing, paying him a visit?

He opened the door and put his focus into looking displeased. "Rogue's not here."

Whatever Natsu had planned to say, this disarmed him completely. Sting bristled seeing that. He and Rogue had been together since they were kids, and Rogue had only gone to Natsu briefly when the two of them hit a rough patch. For as awesome as Rogue was, Natsu needed to not freeze like that after two years.

"I know," Natsu said finally. "I wanted to see Alex."

"Why?"

"Because Erza left town with Kiseki to visit Jellal this morning, and Alex is the only other little kid I know."

"Go play with Asuka."

"She isn't little enough anymore," Natsu protested.

"Why do you even need to play with a little kid? You're an adult. Find someone your own age and do adult things with them. _Act_ your age for once."

Natsu narrowed his eyes at Sting, who realized that was the pot calling the kettle black. But rather than call out that point, the roset said, "Let's make a trade. You show me how to play with Alex, and I'll teach you how to cook without burning everything."

"Maybe some other time. I'm a little sensitive to smells at the moment, so I'd like to keep the cooking to a minimum." There was plenty he could learn to make that wouldn't use ingredients with smells that upset him. In fact, the fridge was stocked exclusively with foods that pregnant Sting found less offensive to the nose. But he wasn't going to admit that any sooner than he would admit how badly it bruised his pride to be offered lessons in how not to burn everything from _Natsu_.

"Well… maybe I could play with Alex now, and then give you lessons later? You know I'm good with my word. I can make you lunch, while I'm here. I got pretty good at cooking while… So I'm sure I can make you something you'd like. And if you aren't feeling well then wouldn't it be good to have someone to help you with your daughter?"

Natsu got to be good at cooking because that was how he spoiled Rogue. Rogue, who was good at cooking despite despising the chore because Sting couldn't cook, had been delighted during his time with Natsu to be the one someone else cooked for. Sometimes, when he was frazzled while making dinner, Rogue might let slip that the recipe was one he'd picked up from Natsu. Rogue had plenty of specials already, but every single recipe he took from Natsu was a quality one, and Sting could only imagine the effort the roset put into making those meals for Rogue, trying to hold on to him even after Sting came back into the picture and begged Rogue to return.

"How do I know you won't poison the food?"

Catching himself before he said something awful had always been a weak point of Sting's.

They both went rigid when he said it. It had been two years. Two years since Natsu said he couldn't take the competition between the two of them anymore, and that he was giving up on Rogue. Two years of Natsu avoiding them. Of them avoiding him. After two years it seemed like the animosity between them ought to have worn off. For Natsu maybe it had. He hadn't even been with Rogue a year, and Sting had seen him with Lucy since. But it was no small matter to Sting. He'd been dead set on being Rogue's, on Rogue being his, since the two of them had met a decade ago. Natsu had been the interloper who tried to take his Rogue away. Who came so terrifyingly close to stealing his beloved, his daughter, his everything. And two years of not sitting down and trying to smooth over the friction that caused between the two of them had done nothing to calm Sting on that front.

Natsu, who had been smiling moments earlier, pressed his lips into a thin line, eyes widening a second before going narrow.

"Not while you're pregnant. The kid did nothing wrong."

"Goodbye."

Natsu stuck his foot out, blocking Sting when he tried to slam the door shut. Of course. He wasn't fighting, so he was kidding himself thinking he could physically force Natsu to go away. Granted, that yelp when the door smacked into Natsu's foot had been pretty damn satisfying.

He glared at the fire slayer, bracing for whatever verbal jabs might come his way, and was completely unprepared when Natsu shook his head and spoke.

"Sorry. I'm not here to fight with you. Really. I want to make amends."

"Rogue's not here."

"Really, Sting. I'd like things to be friendly between us. _Us_. Me and you."

"Rogue—"

"I _know_ he's not here, stupid! Gray told me they were leaving the other day, and his scent's too weak anyway." Natsu scowled. "I don't _want_ to see Rogue."

"Sure."

"_I_ left _him_."

"Congrats. You beat him to your breakup."

Natsu growled, but couldn't say anything to that. He had, after all, ended things in large part because he'd come to the conclusion that Rogue was never going to let go of Sting. Even if he thought they could have made a good couple in the blond's absence, he'd known he was never going to have an absolute victory.

"Look, Sting. I'm over Rogue. Really."

"Really."

"Really!"

"So you've been avoiding Rogue because you don't feel anything anymore?"

"No… it's just…"

There was no good way to tell Sting the real problem. That he didn't want Rogue falsely accused of disloyalty again—even if Natsu was the only one Rogue had actually cheated on. That even if it no longer hurt to think about how he hadn't been enough, there was still some part of him that felt like he ought to have fought harder, that regretted backing off whenever he heard Rogue laugh or saw him smile. That he'd been genuinely excited at the thought of helping Rogue raise a child, and now he saw the baby girl that had almost been his tagging along behind her mom and dad, never even noticing him.

Sting would take the first as an attack on his character. He _hated_ being reminded of how he'd hurt Rogue. Especially by Natsu. The second he might take as a sign that Natsu still had some intent to try and take Rogue back. The third might get him punched in the face. Sting adored Alex, and as the biological father, had despised the idea that Natsu might raise her if Rogue chose not to return to how things had been before learning he was pregnant.

"It's just awkward with him. After everything that happened. We're past that… but then what if the subject came up? I don't want it to look like I'm trying to come between you two, but if one or the other of us said something, and it made us remember something from while we were living together…"

Sting had yet to stop glaring. Natsu took it as a sign that it wasn't a good subject to discuss with the white slayer either.

"I know how to make fudge. I even brought ingredients for that. And I promise you I don't have any poison on me. All I want is to make friends with you."

"If I weren't pregnant, would you have brought poison?"

"No. And you would have gone off on a job with Rogue anyway. And I wouldn't have had the chance to talk to you. I don't want to poison you. Honest. Just don't be mean. I'm trying to make a friendly gesture. We're guild mates. We should get along better."

Sting continued to glare as he considered the situation. Natsu, it seemed, had no intentions of leaving, and he couldn't force Natsu to go. If memory served, Natsu was about as good with kids as Sting was with cooking, but he and Lector would both be there to make sure nothing went wrong with Alex. And fudge sounded good.

"Fine. It's Alex's nap time soon. You can join her tea party and make fudge once she's asleep."

Grinning, Natsu stepped in and looked around, spotting Alex on the floor on the other side of the couch. She paid him no heed, instructing Frosch on how to properly drink pretend tea. Frosch, of everyone in the apartment, was the best to pair off with Alex when it came to this game. No one else took it so seriously.

"I figured Frosch would go on jobs with Rogue," Natsu said to no one in particular.

"That's how it usually goes. But Rogue asked her to stay here." In case something went wrong, and one or the other of them to run out and get help. So there could still be someone there to watch over Sting. Which was silly. Sting knew that Rogue had worked while pregnant and spent plenty of time more or less alone. Why Rogue kept watching him like he might suddenly fall apart, Sting had no idea.

Not that he minded. Even if it was a tad overbearing at times, having Rogue pay so much attention to him was nice.

"Ah. That so?" Natsu shrugged, thinking little more of it, and went to sit down beside the two. "Hey? Mind if I join in?"

Alex looked up at him, studying the near stranger, then looked to her dad for a verdict.

It hurt Sting to be honest. "Natsu's a nice man. You can play with him."

She wordlessly passed Natsu a little plastic cup.

While Natsu did his best to be a part of the tea party, Sting made himself comfortable on the couch, watching closely. It might have been more fair to let Natsu know that Alex was at the age where it was common for kids to be shy around strangers, but then being fair to Natsu wasn't high on the list of things he wanted to do. Alex wasn't so timid that she needed to hide from someone her parents gave their thumbs up to, but she wasn't keen on talking to Natsu in her little toddler babble, and Natsu quite clearly had no idea what to make of that.

The next twenty minutes were entertaining enough for Sting, watching Natsu fumble for a topic he could engage Alex with. She poured him a new cup of imaginary tea whenever he set his cup down, but otherwise ignored him, instead telling Frosch about the dinner party they needed to dress up for later and all the cake they needed to have ready for when the bear queen joined the party. (Rogue, for whatever reason, had brought no shortage of teddy bears with him when they set up Alex's nursery. Sting had no idea which one the queen was. He suspected it changed regularly.)

When Alex began to nod off mid tea pouring, Sting scooped her off the ground. Natsu followed the two of them as Sting carried her to the nursery and set her in her crib, pulling her blanket over her and setting the cat plushie she'd been given for Christmas and her favorite stuffed dragon down with her.

He paused a moment, then said to Natsu, "She's old enough for it to be safe."

"For… what to be safe?"

Given the horrified look on Natsu's face, Sting didn't want to know what the roset was imagining them doing to his sleeping daughter.

"For her to have soft toys with her in bed."

"Why would that not be safe?"

For a completely different reason than usual, Sting thanked the heavens that Rogue had chosen him in the end. Suddenly, the idea of Natsu raising his daughter made him feel uneasy in a whole new way. Poor Alex wouldn't have lasted a month with this idiot.

_His_ horror must have been evident on his face as well, because Natsu looked down and said, "Little kids are hard."

"Yeah. They are." And there was another baby on the way now, which would double the work.

Sting absentmindedly rubbed his stomach.

"I thought that… " Natsu shook his head. "How far are you? Is there a bump yet? Rogue tried to hide his as long as he could. I only got to see it by accident."

Sting hadn't had a chance to see Rogue's pregnant stomach until the shadow slayer's most form concealing clothes no longer did the job… but that was his own fault. "My clothes aren't really meant for hiding anything," Sting admitted. "It's only been eight weeks. I haven't noticed any outward changes yet. Now, what was it you were thinking?"

Natsu grunted.

"You practically forced your way into my home. If you wouldn't let me enjoy my afternoon in peace, I'm not going to let you change the subject."

"I promised to make fudge, didn't I? I should get on that."

"You should. And while you make it, you can tell me about this thing you were thinking of."

-o-

Sting let Natsu work in silence while he measured on the ingredients, but once he got to mixing, the blond spoke up.

"So whatever you really came here for, why couldn't you bring Happy?"

"I really came to get on better terms with you, and to play with Alex."

"And your motive for that?"

"I don't like having guild members who I don't get along with."

"And you thought insisting that you engage with my daughter, my daughter who you almost prevented me from being able to raise, was going to get you on my good side?"

"No. But I didn't realize you'd be this touchy about it."

"So why did you want to play with Alex?"

In part, it was because, like Sting, Natsu had wanted to raise her. He really had liked Rogue. He really had meant it when he said he could be Alex's father, since Sting seemed to be out of the picture when he made the offer. Even if he'd been woefully unprepared to care for a baby, he'd been excited for it all the same.

But that was the last thing he was going to admit when Sting all but confessed to hating him near Alex. Natsu gave the other reason, the main reason, instead.

"Lucy and I are together."

"I thought so."

"She asked. A few months ago."

Sting raised an eyebrow. "Her?"

"Well, I…" Natsu blushed. Taking the initiative was more his thing. He'd dove head first into a relationship with Rogue. But after how that ended… "I suppose I was being cautious. She got less and less subtle, but I didn't want to make a move until I was sure. And then she beat me to it."

"Ah."

"Anyway. We haven't been dating that long, but we were already pretty close. She was talking about families and stuff, and it made me remember what Rogue said, when he'd openly compare the two of us. He said that he had to consider what was best for Alex on top of what he wanted most, and he thought you would make a better father. No matter what I tried to get good with raising kids, I never changed his mind on that one."

"Well, I never learned to cook," Sting said, rather than admit to just how much time he spent studying up on child rearing when he realized how seriously he needed to make it up to Rogue for not believing that their baby was really his—even if it was Rogue who had done a terrible job of explaining how that was possible. "So you thought you'd practice on my kid before having one of your own?"

"Yeah."

Natsu could out blunt both Sting and Rogue, and if he had an ounce of tact, Sting hadn't seen it.

"I can keep making sweets for you guys. And I'll only come when Rogue's not here. I'd really… Until your baby's born at least, I think it would be best if we kept avoiding each other." No sense in stressing Sting while he was pregnant. "I mean, he'll be able to smell that I was here, but we don't have to see each other. I can come to help with whatever, so long as he isn't around. And you can supervise while I'm with Alex, if you want. Is that alright?"

Sting considered it. Keeping Natsu and Rogue apart sounded good to him. As far as he knew, that wasn't a guarantee if he didn't make this deal. So long as he watched closely, Natsu shouldn't be able to do too much to Alex with his well intentioned ignorance, and if he tied down with Lucy and started his own family, Sting would never feel any worry about Natsu still vying for Rogue again. There was also the that Rogue was good at making pies and cakes and ice cream, but that was his entire repertoire of sweets. Being pregnant had intensified Sting's sweet tooth beyond belief.

"That depends."

"Depends on what."

"How good the fudge is."

Natsu grinned. "We have a deal then."


	6. Chapter 6

The fudge only lasted as long as it did because Natsu made too much. The pan fried doughnuts he made the next time he came, caked in sugar, lasted less than a full day, and Sting ate them so fast that despite his new found tolerance of sweetness, he was still horribly sick afterward. He didn't know if Natsu caught on to that or not, but the third time the boy came, he made Sting a tart in a bowl sized dish that was obviously meant to be a single serving.

His scent was all over the kitchen for days after each visit, and while Rogue did his best to ignore it at first, after a month had gone by he couldn't help but ask.

"He and Lucy want a kid, so he visits for lessons on child rearing."

"That's all?"

"He makes sweets as payment." No doubt Rogue could smell that whenever he came home. "He says he'll teach me to cook eventually."

"I wish him the best of luck with that. Truly."

"Wish _me_ luck teaching. Do you have any idea how dense this guy is when it comes to kids? I wouldn't for a second leave him alone with Alex. I don't doubt that he _means_ well, but I'm sure I'd come back to find her in horrible condition."

Rogue nodded, unsurprised to hear that. Natsu had bowed out of their love triangle when he learned that too much of Rogue's heart still belonged to Sting. Your boyfriend staying in a hospital for a week watching over your rival in love was a pretty strong signal that said rival meant a _lot_. And that Sting had been in the hospital as a consequence of saving Rogue's life hadn't helped. Nor had Sting revealing to Natsu that, despite Rogue having been one-hundred percent faithful when he was with Sting, since starting to date Natsu, he'd snuck back to his old home to visit Sting and ended up making out.

Among the reasons Rogue had been willing to avoid Natsu for so long was that he realized what a horribly unfair person he'd been to the fire slayer throughout that ordeal. It was amazing Natsu was willing to ignore him to, rather than turn on him.

"You two aren't fighting?"

"I don't have the energy to fight. And he makes me sweets, so I can tolerate him."

"You need to eat more than just sugar."

"You make me healthy things. Although if you feel like mixing up some ice cream, I wouldn't mind. You can flavor it with fruit. Fruit are healthy."

"Here." Rogue tossed Sting an apple. "The baby eats what you eat. Take better care of them."

Sting blushed and grudgingly bit into the fruit.

"Anyway, has Natsu commented on _that_ yet?" Rogue asked, gesturing with the knife he was using to mince garlic to the soft bump visible beneath Sting's tight shirt.

To Rogue's annoyance, Sting covered the area with his free arm. "He hasn't been here in a week. It wasn't really noticeable then."

"Do you not like it?"

"I feel fat."

"Too many sweets?"

"Rogue!"

Rogue chuckled. "Well, I seem to remember someone saying that all those shirts that didn't cover their stomach would fit just fine while they were pregnant. Should I buy maternity clothes?"

"I…" Sting straightened and raised his chin defiantly. "Once it's big enough that I actually look pregnant, instead of just chubby, it will be fine. I _wanted_ to be pregnant."

"Until then?"

"Ah… well… I have a few loose shirts."

Which were almost all pajamas.

"You can borrow a few of mine," Rogue offered. "My clothes aren't as skintight, and they're better suited for going around during daytime."

Sting considered the option, then shook his head. After begging Rogue to agree to this second child for years, after all the hassle and heartbreak of the miscarriages and managing to have pregnancy that would last—or that had lasted so far, at least—Sting felt like he had an obligation to find everything about the experience great. He couldn't hide that the morning sickness sucked, and maybe he wasn't as happy with his baby bump as he'd thought he would be, but for as badly as he'd wanted to be pregnant, he'd be damned if he wasn't going to enjoy it. And that meant no hiding his stupid bump.

"Are you sure? My clothes are warmer."

-o-

Rogue didn't need to know that it wasn't the idea of warmth that got Sting into his shirt. He wasn't likely to discover the truth either, since Sting quickly found that warm clothes were nice. Their apartment was heated, naturally, but the heater only worked so well, and it was still cold out. In fact, it was snowing just then.

It was also nice to have something that Rogue's scent so deeply permeated. It felt like getting a warm, fuzzy hug from Rogue himself.

When Sting said as much, Rogue blushed and mumbled something about taking Alex outside to build a snowman. Sting thought he'd only said that as a way to change the subject, but a few minutes later Rogue started dressing Alex in snow pants and a little winter coat, nodding along while she babbled about carrots.

Rogue caught his eye and looked away, blushing, trying not to scowl while talking to their daughter, who was too young to tell what had upset her parents—only that they were upset with _something_. Sting grinned at that. So Rogue had tried to change the subject and was now going out of his way to make it look like he hadn't just brought up snowmen because he got flustered.

"You're cute," Sting said.

"Shut it. And put a coat on. That sweater isn't going to keep you warm if you're out in the snow."

Rogue tossed Sting his coat and picked Alex up, heading outside before Sting could embarrass him any further.

Sting pulled the coat on, but paused before going out, and ran to the bathroom to inspect himself in the mirror. No matter the angle, he couldn't see the bump through the sweater, although he could still feel it when he patted his midsection. He could also see a softness in her arms and cheeks that he wasn't sure he liked. Without the baby bump diverting attention, he became aware of the fact that it wasn't just his stomach that had grown in the past few weeks.

"Guess that's what I get for eating so many sweets." He sighed, pinching at his arm. If he hadn't already had two miscarriages, he would find some workout that was advertised as baby safe. Since he'd had two miscarriages already, he would have to settle for a more dedicated workout regimen after the baby was born.

Since Rogue had left in such a rush with Alex, Sting took it upon himself to check the kitchen for snowman decorations. He grabbed raisins for the eyes and mouth, and upon failing to locate carrots, substituted a celery stalk.

His lover and daughter were out of sight by the time he made it out into the snow, but that was fine. Rogue's scent was one he knew better than any, and he could easily follow it to the park, where he found Alex making a snow angel. It would have been cute to catch Rogue making one too, but instead, the shadow slayer was instructing Frosch on how to wave her arms and legs without wiggling her tail too much so she could make a snow angel too. A snowball that had been rolled to half the size of what one might reasonably use for the base lay abandoned off to the side.

Since he'd gone through all the trouble of walking across town with a celery stalk, Sting took it upon himself to finish rolling the base of the snowman. Seeing her daddy do a thing sparked Alex's interest, and she got up and put together another snowball, rolling it alongside him. Soon Frosch and Lector had come back over to help to, and Rogue…

Were the heck did Rogue go?

"Cold?"

Sting turned around to see Rogue offering up a cup of hot chocolate. Sniffing the air, Sting noticed that they weren't too far from a café. Rogue must have slipped away to get them something.

He had a cup for himself too, and a kiddy cup for Alex, which he'd managed to get a straw for. They both took a test sip, and silently agreed to take the lid off of Alex's drink and let it cool a bit before giving it to her. No need for all of them to end up with burnt tongues.

Rogue took over the snowman, helping Alex roll while Sting sat back and watched. She was getting bigger. The snow came up almost to her knees, but she showed no signs of letting that stop her, plowing through the snow after her mother. Her birthday was a few months away, but it still felt surreal to think she was going to be three soon.

"No, Mama! Me! I do it!" she cried when Rogue moved to lift the second snowball up and set in in place as their snowman's midsection.

Rogue hesitated. The snowball was already too large for Alex to roll, but when she pouted like that…

"You can do it, pumpkin," Sting called.

Sighing, Rogue stepped back and let Alex squat down and wrap her arms as far as she could around the snowball. Hugging it as she was, chubby cheek smushed into the snow, she didn't see her mommy slip into the shadows, nor the hand that rose up seconds later from under the snowball that helped her lift it and slide it onto their growing snowman.

She squealed, jumping up in down with delight upon seeing the snowball in its proper place, and began packing snow for the head.

"How are you feeling?" Rogue asked Sting when he noticed the blond still sitting back.

"Fine."

"You don't feel sick?"

"Not much."

"Tired?"

"Not really."

"Not really, or no?"

"It's mid-afternoon, Rogue."

"It's okay if you're tired now. You're growing a baby. That takes a lot of energy," Rogue insisted.

Sting laughed. "When you say it like that, it sounds like I've got the poor thing in an incubator in a lab somewhere."

Rogue glanced down at Alex, who was pushing with all her might to get their final snowball to a good head size. "It's too bad we don't make children that way. I think it would be a lot easier, overall."

"Aw. Don't say that. You loved carrying Alex."

"I love _having_ Alex. Every part of obtaining her I would have happily skipped," Rogue corrected. "You're sure you're fine? Nothing hurts?"

"My stomach. A little. But the hot chocolate isn't making me throw up."

"That's everything?"

"That's everything," Sting assured Rogue, but now he couldn't help but frown. Lately, when Rogue was around, Sting might catch him watching with an odd expression. Like he was just waiting for Sting to collapse. "Why? Did you have any weird symptoms that I needed to be on the lookout for?"

"Once the baby gets bigger, nothing will ever be comfortable. But right now, everything should be fine. Just… I haven't been around as much since you took back over with Alex." He paused to check on their daughter, and saw she was still patting their snowball into place. "Sometimes I get worried, when I'm away with work. What if something happens goes wrong while I'm out, and there isn't anyone there to help you? I hate taking jobs that last overnight. I don't like leaving you along that long. And I hardly get any sleep worrying about you anyway."

"Aw. You like me, don't you? You really like me."

To his amusement, that made Rogue blush and duck so that his hair hid his face.

"Mama!" Alex cried out then, taking both their attention. She had finished with the head, but had realized in the middle of attempting to lift it that the top of the snowman's body was out of her reach.

Rogue picked the snowball up and placed it for her, while Sting handed their daughter the packet of raisins and lifted her up to decorate the face. She ate a handful before they could correct her on their purpose.

When it came time to apply the nose, Alex started crying and screaming, because celery wasn't a carrot, and snowmen _had_ to have carrot noses. That was all she'd ever seen in picture books so she _knew_ that was the way it had to go. While Rogue crammed the celery stalk in for the sake of being done with it, Sting turned so he blocked her view of the horrible celery snowman, and made up some story about how this snowman was afraid of the color orange so she would accept the horrible monstrosity they had shoved into the poor thing's face.

"Soon, we're going to have two of these," Rogue said. "You're really sure your ears can handle that?"

"I'll ask you that the next time she's giggling," Sting promised. "Stop pretending. You know you love her."

Rogue grinned, but the expression faltered a second later. "Here. Let me hold her."

"I'm not going to wear myself out carrying a toddler, Rogue."

"I know, but…"

Rolling his eyes, Sting handed Alex over. "Weren't you the one who didn't want me lying in be the whole nine months?"

"I don't want you overdoing it either, and she's getting bigger."

"Don't worry so much. It's been three months, and at the last doctor visit they said the baby's still going strong."

"It's not the baby I'm most worried for."

"Then you're being even more ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with me, Rogue."


	7. Chapter 7

**STA**: Been trying to post on Mondays, but I don't anticipate having internet next Monday, so here's the chapter little early.

* * *

It was because Rogue seemed so on edge over the idea that Sting's body was going to just give out someone that Sting refrained from mentioning anything when he first noticed something amiss.

Erza had Alex that day. She had decided to take Kiseki to some kiddie park that neither of Alex's motion sickness prone parents would ever dare go to, and had offered to take their daughter along with her. Sting had planned to send Lector and Frosch off on some long errand, light a few candles, and finally, _finally_ consummate his relationship with Rogue. But when he was in the closet, digging around for the candles he bought over a year ago for when he eventually found a time to use them, he felt a sharp twinge in his back, and had to pull out.

He waited for it to settle, then crawled onto bed and tested a couple different positions that he and Rogue might get into, and found those made the pain come back.

With a sigh, he resigned himself to being a virgin for another day. Probably another three or four months, unless they could find a way to pawn Alex off onto Erza without Rogue needing to go out for work first. But it couldn't be helped.

Rogue mentioned the possibility of them having a nice, romantic dinner. Make something of their break from parenthood. He probably didn't have sex on his mind. He thought of it far less often than Sting. But Sting, having sex on his mind, said he didn't think it would work. So he'd amended plans to going on a quick job and letting Sting relax on his own for the day, with the promise of a nice restaurant dinner instead. Since it was still cold out, he said, Sting wouldn't attract too many looks wearing warmer, baggier clothes.

Sting donned such an outfit when he followed Rogue to the guild. His stomach had grown considerably in the past few weeks, and he now straddled the line between looking like he was pregnant and looking like he had a lot of belly fat. He still wasn't overly fond of the bump, whatever he told Rogue about it, but surely he'd still come to appreciate it. Perhaps once he could feel the baby kicking.

Or maybe when they had a gender? They were going to learn next week. Unlike Rogue, Sting couldn't wait until the baby was born to find out.

"You didn't need to follow, if you wanted to take it easy."

"I wanted to come here. And If I didn't come, then how could I trust that you wouldn't take a job that lasts all week and cheat me out of that dinner you promised?"

That earned Sting a chuckle. "If there's nothing that will have me home by dinner time, I won't work at all."

"Good." Sting rubbed his lower back, feeling for any obvious abrasions that might be responsible for the dull twinge that had pestered him since he looked for those candles. "Maybe we can get something nice for breakfast while we're here? Coffee cake?"

"Can you stomach eggs?"

"Yes, but—"

"Eggs it is," Rogue ordered. "You need more than sugar to sustain yourself. Especially now that you aren't constantly sick."

"It's not _constant_, but for as often as morning sickness still hits, something that I'm less likely to throw up would be nice."

"Eggs or nothing, Sting."

"Could I at least get something… different? Toast? Sausage? The cook here always makes eggs—"

"Are you alright?"

Sting froze. "What?"

"You keep rubbing your back." Rogue narrowed his eyes at Sting's arm, which was bent behind him. "Is it bothering you?"

"It's nothing," Sting insisted. "I slipped earlier and bumped into the table before I caught myself."

"I didn't hear anything."

"Of course not. You were trying to convince Alex that us not going with her to that kiddie park wasn't a good reason to scream."

"How convenient."

"You don't trust me?"

"That's really it?" Rogue pressed.

"It really is."

Sting hoped that would settle the matter, but Rogue hovered outside the guild doors, watching him with a look that made the blond uncomfortable.

"Promise me," Rogue said. "Promise that if anything feels wrong, you'll let me know."

"I promise."

Rogue nodded, satisfied, and pushed the guild door open.

Inside was the usual bustle. Natsu's team, sans Erza, had left on a dark guild suppression assignment. That left the guild a little quieter and significantly less chaotic than normal, but it also meant there was no awkward tension to quiet things considerably when Rogue and Sting showed up.

Rogue and Natsu really needed to sit down, talk things out, and move on. Sting would push them to do so, were he a bigger person. It wasn't that he was afraid of Rogue leaving again. Even if Rogue had cheated on Natsu, the shadow slayer had always been as loyal to _him_ as could be. But Rogue and Natsu had been close for a time. A time when Rogue and Sting had been much too far apart. And being reminded of that made Sting uncomfortable. Rogue and Natsu being close again, even as mere friends, was an idea that made Sting queasy.

Or was that just morning sickness?

"Good morning, you two!" Mira called from behind the bar counter. "Are you getting anything today? Or is it just work?"

Rogue paused to see if Sting would respond, then said, "We'll have breakfast here."

"Then hop on up. I just got the stove started, so you'll have something nice and fresh."

"Warm. The stove can't effect freshness, but if you've just started cooking then everything should be warm," Rogue corrected, which made Sting grin. For someone who hated cooking, he was awfully particular about it.

"Is that your offer to come back and help?"

"I intend to never set foot in that kitchen again."

"Oh, really? Well, I'll have to do something about that. In the meantime, what can I get you?"

They had eggs and sausage, and Rogue's insistence, and Mira mercifully brought Sting a scone free of charge. "Since I know your baby likes sugar."

While he'd received a loud and cheerful reception upon making his announcement, it was rare for someone from the guild to verbally acknowledge that there was another baby coming. A holdover of their tiptoeing around the twin slayers' relation with Natsu, Sting suspected. He knew Natsu wanted a kid, and that Natsu still thought about how Alex had almost been his, at least from time to time. Even if he really was over Rogue, the news that Rogue was going to have two children soon, both with the man Natsu had lost Rogue to, probably wasn't the most pleasant.

While Wendy got a pass, as she was the blessed saint who could suppress his morning sickness entirely, most of the guild was more subtle in how they showed consideration for Sting's condition. No one questioned it when Sting stopped working. Wakaba went outside to smoke, or at least hovered by an open window. Elfman, more than once, had mentioned that he had a few worn out shirts, if Rogue still liked clothes in that size. Even Cana, at her most thoroughly wasted, wouldn't try to tempt him to drink.

Sting nibbled on the scone as he reflected on those changes, and on the possibility that he might end up in Elfman's hand-me-downs if he didn't resign himself to going out with Rogue to buy maternity clothes. So deeply lost in thought was he that when he felt someone's lips clamp down on his ear, he instinctively reached back and swatted them.

"Well, if you're not in the mood, I won't say goodbye," Rogue said. "Not that it matters. I should only be gone a few hours."

"Oh. Sorry." Sting rubbed the ear that Rogue's lips had brushed over. "We're still on for dinner?"

"Yes, and there's lunch in the fridge. Lector can reheat it in the microwave."

"Dammit, Rogue. I can use a microwave."

"No. You can _destroy_ microwaves. I am not teasing you when I say that, for the sake of our apartment not burning down, you are forbidden from using the microwave."

"I won't put metal in it this time."

"You said that _last_ time."

"And I didn't put metal in."

"Then how did the microwave catch fire?"

Sting shrugged.

"Well… whatever. Have Lector warm up lunch for you. There's tea too. And I made you ice cream, but I'm not telling you where it's hidden. Frosch will get it out for you as long as you actually eat a healthy lunch."

"You think Frosch will remember where it's hiding?"

"I have faith in her."

"We're both going to be disappointed."

"It's a small apartment. I'm sure she'll manage to find it eventually," Rogue amended.

"Oh? Is that so?" Sting smirked. "Maybe I can sniff it out, then."

Ignoring that, Rogue leaned over and kissed Sting on the forehead. "I won't be gone long. You two take care."

Out of habit, Sting assumed Rogue meant him and Alex, and was about to remind the shadow slayer that Alex was out for the day when it struck him that Rogue had referred to the child he was carrying. This was even more bizarre than the guild mentioning his pregnancy aloud. While he and Rogue discussed it often, Rogue seemed more focused on how it impacted Sting's wellbeing than anything else. The baby itself he typically only discussed when Sting made their unborn child the subject of discussion.

He blinked, stunned, and missed his chance to say a proper farewell to Rogue before he was out the door.

"So?" Mira leaned over the counter, taking Sting's attention and making him miss his chance to race after Rogue too. "How are you going to take advantage of the free time? Throw a party?"

He might have, a few months earlier. Now he felt a little queasy, and that twinge in his back was getting more irritating the longer he stayed upright.

"You guys have enough parties here for me to get my fill. I think I'm just going to take it easy, like he said."

"Oh. Well, you have a nice day with that."

-o-

Frosch wasn't perceptive, but even she would notice if Sting acted way out of the ordinary, and Lector had been on a constant watch even more vigilant than Rogue's to see if anything went wrong with Sting's pregnancy. He didn't know what Rogue was so afraid of, but in Lector's case, at least, Sting knew he'd alarmed the little guy by staying in bed for a month. Since they were both there, he decided to continue concealing the back pain. He'd managed to fool Rogue, more or less, so he could keep the cats from noticing anything amiss.

That was the plan, anyway. As the day went on Sting became increasingly skeptical of this. Reaching for corners while cleaning hurt. Searching for the ice cream hurt. After enough active ways to occupy his time hurt, even sitting started to hurt.

He diligently ate the lunch that Lector heated for him, let Frosch fetch the ice cream (from the freezer—Rogue hadn't hidden it after all), and had a bowl before putting himself to bed. The less pressure he put on his back, he figured, the easier a time he would have at dinner with Rogue. And once that special occasion was over he would go back to bed and pretend to be totally exhausted for a day or two.

Everything would be fine. Lector and Rogue kept worrying, but there was nothing wrong. Nothing at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Sting had regressed.

Rogue wasn't sure when exactly it happened. Lector claimed Sting had stayed in bed whenever he wasn't around for a few days before the blond gave up on hiding it from him. Getting him out of bed to visit the doctor had been such a fight that Rogue had been forced to contact the hospital and reschedule.

He was determined not to do that again.

"Come _on_ Sting. You're overdue for an ultrasound. They need to make sure the baby is growing properly. And don't you want to know the gender?"

"Can't the doctor just come here?"

"Yes. But the equipment he needs will be over there. I know hospitals smell awful, but you have to go."

Sting shook his head. "I don't feel good."

Rogue had hoped it was just that Sting was afraid for the baby again, but feared an answer like this all the same. "How so?"

"Sick," Sting said. "I feel sick."

"Your morning sickness is bad again?"

Sting nodded.

Bull. He was making it up. He had to be. Even when his sickness was at its worst, Rogue had still seen Sting get up and drag himself through the day. But unless Sting chose to answer honestly, Rogue couldn't force the real reason out of him.

That being said, he could easily disprove Sting's claim. He went into the kitchen pulled out a packet of bacon, and set that cooking while he rolled out dough. By the time the bacon had cooked, he was ready to fry doughnuts, and he munched on the fatty meat while doing so. When he and the cats had eaten half of it, he stopped. Whatever Sting claimed, he suspected the blond would want some.

The doughnuts were coated with a generous helping of sugar and placed on a plate with the remaining bacon, which Rogue carried back into his and Sting's bedroom.

Sting watched Rogue come in and sit in a chair across from the bed, then take a doughnut, and bite into it.

"You're evil."

"I've been told I might head down that road, but I think I missed whatever turning point was supposed to solidify my descent into madness. How are you feeling?"

"I'm going to be so sick, Rogue."

"Really, now?"

"Do you want me to have to rush to the bathroom? If I don't make it in time you'll be scrubbing puke off the floor."

"It would be worth it, if that got you out of bed."

There was a pause.

"Go on," Rogue insisted. "Rush to the bathroom."

He waited longer this time while Sting struggled with how to properly react to this one.

"Fine," Sting said after a good three minutes of internal debate. "I'm not sick. Happy?"

"Not really. But here's a doughnut for being honest." Rogue held one out. "They're still warm. Now if you could—Sting! Don't eat it over the bed! You'll get sugar everywhere! You do know we _sleep_ in that, right?"

Sting gave Rogue a much suffered look and pushed himself, agonizingly, into a sitting position. He attempted to lean over the side of the bed to eat the doughnut, but stopped with a whimper, and eased back.

"What's wrong?" Rogue demanded. "What's _really_ wrong?"

Sting hung his head in defeat and shifted to a more comfortable position. "My back hurts. But… that's normal, right? Because the weight from the baby…"

Rogue looked down at Sting's stomach. It was starting to really stick out. You could no longer mistake him for merely putting on weight. In fact, if he were a woman most people would assume he was pregnant. But he wasn't so large yet that it should cause a considerable strain. At least not for someone who hadn't been in a horrible accident a few years ago.

"Doctor. Now." Rogue ordered. "If this is keeping you from getting out of bed, you _need_ to have someone look at you."

Reluctantly, Sting pushed himself forward again, gritting his teeth in pain as he stepped out of bed. He couldn't get himself completely upright, and had to hold on to Rogue for support while they walked. After making it halfway down the hall, the two gave up completely, and Rogue lifted Sting up princess-style. It made the blond blush and complain that it was embarrassing on top of painful, but one way or the other he had to get to the hospital.

-o-

"Normally we would take an x-ray to make sure you haven't re-opened any old wounds, but considering you condition…"

"Can you do anything to inspect him?" Rogue asked. "He couldn't walk. I could hardly get him to sit up."

The doctor, who had watched Rogue fumble trying to get Sting onto the ER table, nodded in understanding. "We don't have any healers on staff, but we can have one come over from another hospital. He may need to stay the night."

Rogue and Sting exchanged scowls. If they needed to take him to someone with actual magic, then it would be easier to ask Wendy for help. But she was off on a solo job protecting some caravan that had important luggage, and wasn't expected back for at least half a week still. Not to mention, Rogue didn't want to move Sting any more than was necessary. So staying overnight would be best.

"No," Sting insisted.

"If the doctor says so—"

"It smells like _death_, Rogue."

"It smells like chemical cleaners."

"And beneath that it smells like _death_." If his back didn't hurt so bad, Sting would have made some dramatic gesture to emphasize his point.

"He can stay the night if you can't get anyone in earlier," Rogue decided for Sting, "but you'll have an easier time of getting him to cooperate if he doesn't have to stay so long."

"Rogue, I'll be fine to wait at home," Sting insisted.

Rubbing Sting's shoulder gently, so as not to accidentally shake him and potentially hurt him further, Rogue shook his head and said, "It's your _spine_, Sting. We're not taking any risks with this."

"It's not a big deal."

"It will be, if you do some permanent damage."

"I won't—"

"Sting, it's your spine."

That silenced the blond for a good five seconds.

"Who will look after Alex?"

"Lector is holding down the fort. I told him to go to Erza if we're gone too long."

"You'll stay with me if I'm trapped here overnight, then?"

Rogue's immediate reaction was to say no. One of them ought to be there for Alex. She might let the cats put her to bed, but she would scream if she got up the next morning and her mommy and daddy were still gone. But Sting really was trapped wherever Rogue left him. He'd seen for himself that the white slayer could hardly move himself. And how much of his reluctance to stay with Sting was his own dislike of hospitals? Would it be fair to tell Sting to put up with it when he couldn't?

"I need to step out for a bit," Rogue told him. "I'll be back with real food. Not… whatever they make here. If we're going to be here overnight, we're going to want something to eat."

He let go of Sting's shoulder and turned to the door when Sting called out, "Wait!"

Rogue looked back. "What?"

"Lean over."

Rogue obliged, and was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek.

"Thanks, Rogue."

"Anything to help."

-o-

In the end, they weren't able to get someone to come and look at Sting before nightfall, and the two wound up staying in the hospital overnight. Sting, after much sweet talking, got the nurse to find him a baby safe drug that would help him sleep despite the pain he was in, and Rogue kept him distracted while he waited for it to kick in by planning aloud for Alex's third birthday. Once Sting was passed out, he settled in a chair that the doctor had let him drag in from the waiting room and went to sleep himself.

Rogue woke the next morning when they finally brought in someone with healing magic. Sting took a little effort to wake, and seemed drowsy even when they got him to keep his eyes open. Aftereffects of the drug, the doctor said. Under different circumstances Rogue might have been troubled by this, but in his stupor, Sting didn't fight against having medical professionals help him.

"How bad is it?" Rogue asked when the healer paused in his inspection.

"Well… it's not the worst I've seen. What kind of trauma did he experience?"

"He was hit by a monster truck. In a destruction derby. He was in a coma for a week."

The healer stared at Rogue, trying to guess as to how someone could possible end up in that situation. When Rogue supplied no further explanation, the man shrugged and resumed working his magic on Sting.

"So?"

"I'll do what I can for him. Whichever surgeon fixed this injury when it happened did a good job, considering he didn't have any magic, but to heal it completely you would _need_ something more magical. If he weren't… ah… if there wasn't a child, I would fix him here and now. As it is, I can treat the symptoms, but there's nothing I can do right now to tackle the cause."

"Meaning…"

"I will fix his back, but it's going to start bothering him again. Soon. Until the baby is born, I would advise he be on bed rest. Or at least wear a brace that will help take some of the pressure off his spine. Even then, he'll likely be in here a few more times in order to ensure that the bone doesn't crack before we can do something more permanent for him."

Rogue made a mental note to ask Wendy to look over Sting regularly. As well as to have her of Porlyusica—probably both—see what they could do for Sting after this pregnancy was over.

"I'll see what I can do for his knee too."

"His knee?"

"Mm. It's not as bad as the spine, but it looks like there's an awful lot of strain on it too. Is that also from the… ah… truck?"

"Probably. I'm still amazed he didn't need a full body cast."

"I see. I really do advise he stay in bed for the next…"

"Six and a half months," Rogue supplied. The old Sting would never have consented to that. The new Sting, who was paranoid about his baby's health and tried to hide it from Rogue when something was wrong, might.

Maybe a wheelchair? It had made Sting motion sick the last time he was stuck to one, but it had been better than nothing. If Sting had preferred being bed ridden to the chair, he wouldn't have used it so much after his accident.

Well… calling it _his_ accident wasn't entirely fair. Completely unfair, in all honestly. It had been Rogue who fell in front of the truck. Sting was only hit because he had to run in front of the truck to throw Rogue to safety. It wasn't fair to call it Sting's accident, and it wasn't fair that Sting was the one in pain now either.

"Alright." The healer stepped back. "You two be careful with him now. I'll have his doctor right up an order for medical supplies. He'll need a brace for his back. And one for the knee too. And a wheelchair. Hopefully, keeping off his feet will keep any other old injuries from flaring back up. I'd tell you to keep him from lifting anything heavy, but I assume he already isn't doing that."

Rogue nodded, absentmindedly running his hand through Sting's hair. Suddenly, he had the strange fear that the blond might collapse under his touch. Silly, if for no other reason than that contact with Rogue made Sting murmur something about chocolate and smile.

They forgot to ask about the baby's gender before they left.

-o-

Since Natsu visited Sting so often, Rogue figured that it was probably alright for him the visit the roset. Besides, Natsu was dating Lucy. There were no lingering feelings between them. None. At all. Absolutely zero. Save for awkward tension, which would never be resolved if they kept avoiding one another.

Rogue carried the still somewhat drowsy Sting home, returning to find Lector frantically trying to stop both Frosch and Alex from crying. That roused Sting somewhat from his drug induced stupor, although he still didn't seem fully awake to Rogue. He set Sting in bed, made Alex a quick breakfast, changed her into clean training pants, then dropped her off beside Sting before heading back out.

Seeing as how Natsu loved the guild so much, Rogue had always wondered about his decision to not only live outside of town, but to pick a house outside of town in the opposite direction as the guild. Of course, Natsu had probably paid almost nothing for that run down, one room home. If he even paid for it at all. There were times when Rogue had been busy cleaning, back when he and Natsu lived together, where he stumbled upon filth so old and alarming that he suspected the building had been abandoned after some tragedy, and Natsu had assumed ownership of it when he showed up in town because no one else would touch it.

The long walk to Natsu's gave Rogue plenty of time to regret his decision, but the further he got the easier it became to tell himself that for as far as he'd made it, he might as well go all the way.

That didn't stop him from hoping that Natsu might have gone off for work. Nor did it stop him from being disappointed when he picked up the fire slayer's scent fresh as he approached the house.

It did, however, make him come to a full stop when Natsu opened the door just as Rogue reached it.

"Hi… I…" Rogue forgot what it was he'd planned on saying. "Good Morning."

"Hi, good morning to you, too," Natsu grinned, then seemed to think better of it, and tried scowling before settling on a neutral expression. "Is something wrong? If this is about me coming over, Sting and I were—"

"He told me," Rogue cut in. "It's fine. I don't mind. And you're helping him with Alex, right? That's… You can see her whenever you want. Really. I don't mind at all."

For as much time as Natsu spent expecting to be her father, Rogue could never tell Natsu to stay away from her now. Maybe not to try and handle her on his own, but denying any contact was out of the question.

"So what is this about then?"

"I was hoping to borrow something that we let you have a few years back. If it's still here."

Peeking over Natsu's shoulder, he saw that the house was in a state of orderly chaos. He didn't know how often Lucy visited, her scent was all over the place, but it looked as though she'd done her best to keep the place clean. Though in the absence of a live-in cleaner, Rogue could see that the clutter had piled up again.

"As long as I'm not using it." Natsu stepped aside and gestured for Rogue to step inside.

Rogue stayed put.

"Well, what did you need?" Natsu asked when it became apparent that he would have to go in and retrieve whatever it was.

"The wheelchair Sting used," Rogue said. "You wanted it as a memento. He… I haven't gone anywhere in the past week, so you haven't been to see him, have you? He's been having some trouble. The strain from his…" Somehow, saying the word 'pregnancy' in front of Natsu felt rude. "The strain from his condition caused some of his old injuries to act up."

And since Rogue wasn't working as often as he should, and couldn't take as high paying of jobs without Sting there to support him, buying a new wheelchair was a big commitment.

"Sure. Do I get it back when you're done with it?"

"That won't be for another half a year, but yes. Once Sting doesn't need it anymore, we can bring it back."

Natsu nodded and disappeared inside. Rogue moved to follow, out of some old habit but stopped himself a few feet from the door, and instead waited outside.

A crash sounded from inside the house, and a half a minute later Natsu emerged with the old wheelchair. It was in good shape, despite whatever had been knocked over to retrieve it. (Probably a stack of items Natsu had stored on the chair.) It had been good of them to hand it over to Natsu, in hindsight. Sting had been just about ready to shred the thing by the time he was able to get out of it.

"One more condition for having it back," Natsu said as he wheeled the chair up to Rogue.

"What?"

"I get to push him around next time I come to visit."

For the first time since showing up at Natsu's, Rogue cracked a grin. He tried to raise his hand over his mouth cover it, but burst out in laughter, and there was no hiding that.

Push Sting's wheelchair. Come to think of it, Natsu had mentioned wanting to do as much when they broke up, hadn't he? Let him push Sting around in return for bringing the blond to Fairy Tail and Natsu said they would be even. Rogue had been so desperate to avoid having to face the man he'd strung along and broken the heart of that he all but forgot about that detail of their last conversation.

"He won't like it, but fine. I think I owe you that one."


	9. Chapter 9

Sting had been about as excited to see Rogue come home with the old wheelchair as Rogue expected. He'd cried, moaned, begged, and even insisted he would spend half a year in bed. Finally, though, Rogue got Sting to admit that he couldn't possibly manage to stay in bed so long, and that it would be best if he did whatever the doctor said.

He had been in a wheelchair before Alex was born, and for several months after, but she had no memory of this. She regarded the wheeled chair at first with mild curiosity. When her daddy sat in it she wanted in as well, but her mommy and daddy would only let her sit on Papa's lap. She wasn't allowed to monopolize the chair. And even after crying and screaming because _he _got the chair when _she_ wanted it, they didn't budge on this.

Over the next several weeks, fortunately, the allure of the wheeled chair that her daddy wouldn't get out of wore off. He sat all the time, so she imitated him and sat on the couch regularly. Staying there for half a minute or so before sitting became boring. Still, she figured there must have been _something_ about it to make it so great. And she wanted to be like Papa.

Papa, she had noticed, had a bigger tummy now. And Mama acted like that had something to do with the chair. She tested out the size of all of her stuffed animals, then took the smallest of her bunnies and tucked it under her shirt before sitting.

At the time, Natsu was visiting. Rogue and Erza were away with work, the three of them and Sting having worked out an arrangement where Rogue and Erza took a high paying, overnight job together while Sting, Natsu, and Lucy watched over their children. Before Erza left, she and Sting traded jokes about "Kiseki scandalizing precious little Alex." Natsu assumed they were jokes, at least. Still, seeing Alex sitting on the couch with a fake pregnant tummy, Natsu froze.

Had Alex overheard something that made her want a baby? What if she understood what having a baby entailed? If not in depth, she might at least know it involved a boy you really liked.

He looked around frantically for Sting, hoping to make sure the blond wasn't there to see that Natsu had failed to keep Alex from starting too young. As it turned out, Sting was in the room, and Natsu's glancing every which way made him curious enough to wheel his chair over and see what had Natsu looking so panicked.

"W-wait. Hold on."

"I'm not going fast," Sting pointed out. Even going slow, the wheelchair bothered his stomach. He liked being a dragon slayer, but some of the cons that came with the magic, namely motion sickness, were a bit over the top.

Alex was still sitting there when he finally reached her, and he laughed upon seeing what had alarmed Natsu.

"You aren't worried?"

"She's two. That kind of play-acting is normal."

"Oh." Natsu scowled. Sting brushed off concern over the situation so lightly he was impressed the blond hadn't laughed him out of the room. If he was going to be wrong about something Alex did, he preferred to be wrong in assuming there was a problem, only for it to turn out things were okay. But he would prefer not to be wrong at all.

Sting glanced left and right. "Was Kiseki with her?"

"No. Should she have been?"

"Yes. He should be _somewhere_, at least. Erza will skin me if I lose him."

Sting grabbed the arms of his chair and started to push himself up, but Natsu grabbed his shoulder and pressed him back against the chair. Despite being on quasi speaking terms again, he and Rogue had made no agreement for him to look after Sting on top of helping with the kid. Not when the shadow slayer still seemed so guilt ridden about their affair to say more than a sentence or two. But agreement or no, Natsu figured it was implied. Sting was pregnant and injured and not one-hundred percent compliant with his doctor's orders.

They weren't fighting over Rogue anymore, so Natsu wanted to try and get along. And having Sting as part of his Fairy Tail family meant looking after his wellbeing. Even if it made the blond glare at him.

"I can look for Kiseki," Natsu said.

"I'm perfectly capable of searching my own apartment, Natsu. It's not that large a space."

"Take it easy."

"Take it easy? What the hell about this makes _easy_ possible?"

Sting blinked, seeming more surprised than Natsu to hear his own outburst.

"Is something wrong?" Lucy asked, sticking her head out of the nursery. Both slayers could see her holding Kiseki in her arms.

"Nothing's wrong," Sting told her, which, as far as he was concerned, was the truth. There was absolutely nothing wrong. It wasn't like his fantasy pregnancy had been nothing but miserable and even landed him in a wheelchair again. He certainly wasn't struggling to manage to look after his own daughter for a simple eight hours.

Lucy shrugged and beckoned for Alex to come to her, and the girl pulled her stuffed bunny out from under her shirt and ran to the older girl. She didn't have an innate sense for what to do with kids, but she picked up fast. If her and Natsu did have a child, Sting figured the kid wasn't completely screwed.

Happy's laughter drew Sting out of his thoughts, and he looked back over to Natsu to see both his own cat and Lector teasing him for thinking a two-year-old might be seriously thinking of having a baby herself. Happy didn't usually come with Natsu, for whatever reason. Sting assumed he was there that time because there was no tricking him into following Lucy around while Natsu snuck off to study parenting.

"I'm going to make lunch," Natsu declared, loudly, so as to drown out the cats' teasing. "Sting, want anything specific?"

"I'm not that hungry."

"That so? I'll pick something out for you then."

"I said I'm not hungry."

"And Rogue said to make sure you were getting enough to eat."

Sting scoffed and turned his wheelchair towards his bedroom. "Fine. Come and get me when it's done."

He half expected Natsu to stop him, but the roset just shrugged and walked over to the kitchen, saying, "I'm gonna make something with bacon, if you don't have a preference.

Free from overbearing friends and family for a few short minutes, Sting wheeled himself into his and Rogue's room. The second he had the door shut, he stood, grimacing slightly, and dragged the chair the rest of the way to the bed so it would look like he stayed in it for as long as was reasonably possible.

While Sting made his small acts of defiance where no one could see them, Natsu dug through the fridge and put together something for them to eat. He put a bit more effort into it than he usually did while cooking for Sting. Lucy was there, after all. Although he was careful to make it still look like something _meant_ for Sting. Otherwise Happy, who was none the wiser at the moment, might tease him for trying to show off his culinary skills to his girlfriend. And if Sting called him out on it in front of Rogue…

He shook his head. Rogue's opinions didn't matter any more than the rest of the guild. Rogue's opinions of him trying to impress Lucy _especially_ didn't matter. Rogue had ignored every last opinion Natsu had on his relationship with Sting, so Rogue had no right to pass judgment on how Natsu acted with Lucy. Less than none, considering what his and Sting's situation had been at the time. And either way, Natsu didn't care what Rogue thought of him and her!

Although he did care if Rogue thought he wasn't paying enough attention to Sting and Alex to be trusted with looking after them. As if was, he knew he was only 'trusted' with Alex because Sting was supervising. And he liked being able to see Alex. Whatever Sting and Rogue thought on the matter, Natsu had thought of himself as her father for so long while Rogue was still pregnant that it felt like he lost his daughter when Rogue went back with Sting. He dared not admit it to anyone, for fear of how Rogue and especially Sting might react, but getting to visit her was like being reunited with his own estranged child. He imagined Jellal must have felt the same way every few months when he and Erza and Kiseki all managed to meet up.

Well, he'd kind of told Sting a much lighter version of that. Which was why he knew better than to confess to his affection for the little girl in full.

When lunch was ready, he called to let Lucy know, then yelled for Sting. Sting didn't yell back. Usually, Sting would yell anything from "Coming" to "Shut up, idiot! The neighbors can hear you well enough at your _normal_ volume." The latter being one Natsu suspected Sting picked up while being scolded for _his_ volume by Rogue.

Sting continued to play mute, so Natsu let himself into the blond's room, and found the boy more or less curled up in his bed.

"You okay?" Natsu asked. "If you're having a rough time—"

"I'm _fine_."

"If it's only moodswings I—"

Natsu was knocked off his feet by a thrown pillow. He should have known he had that one coming. Back when Rogue was pregnant, he responded to any comment along those lines by giving black eyes.

Pulling himself back up, Natsu grabbed the pillow and tossed it back to Sting. It landed on the blond's head and stayed there until Natsu closed the distance between them and pushed it aside.

"Hey. You know, Rogue came to me to get that wheelchair because he _didn't_ want you to stay in bed all day."

"Heaven forbid you disappoint Rogue."

"I'm telling _you_ not to upset him. He worries about you."

"How would you know? You two don't even talk to each other."

"We exchange words."

"How many? Three?"

"Full sentences," Natsu said indignantly, because three sentences was about their upper limit when there wasn't something important Rogue needed to arrange with Natsu.

"You can make a full sentence out of three words."

"Just get out of bed. I made you lunch."

"I'm not hungry."

"Morning sickness?"

"Sure. Go away."

"I can heat up tea, if you're feeling sick."

"I'm sick of you pestering me. Does that count?"

"No. Get out of bed."

Sting flipped Natsu the bird.

"Okay. That does it!" Natsu grabbed the sheets and yanked them off of Sting, tossing them across the room. "I'll drag you if I have to."

Sitting up and glaring at him, Sting spat, "Wow. I'm sure that won't make Rogue fret over my health at all."

"Just because you… can't…" Natsu trailed off, words dying in his throat as he watched the blond's shoulders sag. "What's really wrong? I won't tell Rogue, if you don't want me to."

That seemed to be the nudge Sting needed. He took a deep breath, looked up at Natsu, and confessed, "I hate this."

"Obviously. No one likes sitting in a wheelchair with two splints. But it's only for a few more months, and then we can get you fixed up so this won't ever happen again."

"No. I hate _all of it_." Sting insisted. "I hate being stuck in that torture chair. I hate having to be restrained by this splint. I hate not being able to work, throwing up breakfast as often as not, getting fat… I don't care if it's not _really _fat. I look like I have a beer gut. Rogue's shirts don't fit me anymore and after talking so much about how I was going to love looking pregnant I can't ask him to buy me new clothes, so I'm stuck wearing things that don't come down far enough to cover my stomach and I _hate it_. I hate feeling the kid move—and you can't tell Rogue that. I hate how everyone at the guild and even Frosch insists on handling me with kiddie gloves. I'd have told Rogue my back hurt _way_ earlier if he hadn't spent _months_ before acting like he expected my spine to snap the second he looked away. I hate—"

He hiccupped, which startled him out of his train of thought. He hadn't noticed he'd started crying.

"Are you o—"

"Shut up!" Sting snapped, trying to wipe his eyes.

He hiccuped again, and gave up on trying to hold it in. Burying his hands in his face, he started to wail.

"Sting?" Lector called.

"Is everything alright?" Lucy shouted from the kitchen.

"Uh…" Natsu gave it a moment's thought. "Not really. Lector? Get in here. Everyone else just eat."

He heard Happy's protest, which grew louder and closer as it went on, so he made sure to shut the door and, for good measure, jam a chair under the handle as soon as Lector was in.

The red cat climbed up onto Sting's lap, patting his cheek while Natsu shouted apologies to Happy.

"Sting? What happened?"

"I… I'm not…" Sting hiccuped. "Mood swings."

That had likely played a role in his meltdown, though Natsu wished he would say more.

"Do you want me to bring you lunch? I won't tell Rogue you ate in bed."

Sting nodded.

"Should I move the chair?" Natsu asked.

"I'll go out the window," Lector told him. "Keep Happy out. This isn't that gossiper's business."

Natsu had never thought of Happy as the gossipy type, but he did know that Happy loved to tease. Even if Happy had the good sense to leave Sting be in the moment, that the moment occurred would be rubbed in his face the next time they crossed paths.

Lector let himself out, leaving Natsu to comfort Sting. Wonderful. Because he had done such a good job earlier.

Clearing his throat before he knew what he planned to say, Natsu paused, then blurted out, "So am I not supposed to tell Rogue that you hate feeling the baby move, or does he not know you can feel it?"

Sting drew his breath and said, "It feels _weird_. And it comes when I'm least expecting it. It's unsettling."

"Ah."

"Oh…" Sting hiccupped. "I haven't told Rogue I've felt the baby yet."

"That's fair. He held off on telling us when he could feel Alex kick, remember? He only let Frosch feel it. Did you tell him the gender, or does he not want to know with this one either?"

Sting shook his head. "I don't know it. We forgot to get the baby checked out when my back…" a sob interrupted the sentence, and he didn't try to pick back up with it after. "I don't think Rogue cares, anyway. He hates me being pregnant more than I do. He tries to act supportive about it, but he's not good at hiding it. He only barely gave in to the idea in the first place, and after the first one died he started suggesting we give up. I think he wishes I miscarried this time to."

This absolutely _was_ something Natsu had to tell Rogue, even if it meant forcing the shadow slayer to sit and exchange more than three sentences. It wasn't on the scale of having your love call you a cheating whore and kick you out of the house when you told him that you were going to be parents, but it was still a lack of support that would need to be remedied. If nothing else, Rogue would need to do a better job of masking that he didn't like Sting being pregnant.

Until Rogue came back, Natsu figured damage control was up to him. "I bet he's just worried about your health. You said he expected those old back injuries to flare up, right?"

"He doesn't want the baby. I bet the only reason he isn't saying 'I told you so' is because he's still trying to hide how much he doesn't want the baby."

"Rogue complained all the time about being pregnant with Alex. Really. All the time. And he hit people for pointing out reason that being pregnant wasn't fun. He _definitely_ wouldn't have chosen to have her, but he still loves her. He'll love your baby once he gets to meet 'em."

Sting hiccuped and smiled for Natsu, if only for a second, then said, "Never tell that to Alex."

"Gotcha. Anything else?"

"Is Lector back yet?"

On cue, there was a tap at the window. Natsu opened it wide enough for Lector to carry a plate in, and set it down in front of Sting.

To make sure Happy couldn't pry, Natsu shut and locked the window, and drew the curtains. When he looked back Sting had picked up one of his bacon wrapped meatballs and was sucking on it. As far as comfort food went, Natsu thought it was a good choice. But he wasn't pregnant. He hoped the sausage and bacon wouldn't upset Sting's stomach. They already had enough upset Sting to handle.

"Is the baby alright?" Lector asked.

Sting nodded, managing a weak smile as he said, "Alive and kicking."

"Thank goodness. What went wrong, then?"

"I'm pregnant."

"And he thinks Rogue doesn't want him to be," Natsu added, for Lector's sake.

"Of course not," Lector said. "Rogue hasn't even want Sting going on physically taxing jobs since that truck hit him."

Sting rubbed his cheeks, which were taking longer to wet now, and asked, "Why?"

"Because sometimes you limped after, whether you were hit in the leg or not," Lector told him. "Here."

Sting obediently took the piece of bread that Lector spread butter onto and stuck it in his mouth, staring down at his plate while not even attempting to bite into the food between his teeth. He wasn't crying so hard anymore, although the hiccupping hadn't subsided. The whole letting food hang out of his mouth uneaten thing was probably a bad sign to. But fewer tears was a step up from a couple minutes ago.

Finally, Sting bit into the bread and swallowed it, then told Lector, "Frosch doesn't need to hear _any_ of this."

"Obviously."

"Or Rogue."

"No deal."

"_Lector_."

"Frosch might not know the full scoop, but she'll tell Rogue you cried. And if Rogue was part of why you cried, he needs to know."

"No he doesn't," Sting muttered, then stuck the bread in his mouth again so he wouldn't have to talk.

Lector patiently waited for Sting to give in and eat another bite. "Telling Rogue you didn't understand how he could be pregnant would have prevented a lot of problems before, you know."

Sting cringed, and blinked rapidly, but it looked to Natsu like they were in danger of more water works.

Not wanting Sting to still be crying when Rogue came home, Natsu said, "If you don't want to be the one to talk to him about it, Lector and I can mention it to him. He's acting this way because he doesn't want you getting hurt, right? So he'll want to know that he's hurting you. I won't tell Lucy, and I definitely won't tell Happy. I mean, I'll just tell them this was mood swings."

Sting nodded.

"And you should eat," Natsu told him. Those meatballs won't be as good cold."

"Noted." Sting hiccuped again, and rubbed his cheeks. "Um… Natsu?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you leave it to Lector to tell Rogue? I don't think… um… You shouldn't be the one to come to him with news that things between the two of us are… not ideal."

"Oh." Natsu blinked, then grinned to hide how much that remark bothered him. "Sure. Less work for me."

"Thanks. For the food too. And… for talking, I guess. It felt good to say everything."

It hadn't looked like it felt good, but Natsu smiled and nodded and let himself out, using his body to block any view into the room, since Happy, Lucy, and Alex were all waiting outside.

"Papa's sad?" Alex asked.

"A little, but he's okay."

"Papa needs Mama," Alex told him.

At that moment, Natsu suspected Rogue was the last thing Sting needed, but he patted Alex on the head and nodded along. She was still distracted by her daddy's distress, and Natsu had to persuade Lucy to take Alex and Kiseki out for ice cream. It was so early in the spring that the snow hadn't even melted yet, but both kids loved the idea, and Natsu promised that he wouldn't be too far behind them, so Lucy gave in.

"You too, Happy."

Happy hesitated before following the kids out the door, looking Natsu over and asking, "Are you okay?"

"Mm. Fine. I just want to make sure everything's in order for Sting before I go."

"Alright."

Once alone, Natsu scooped up the lunch dishes, some with meals abandoned halfway through when Sting had started crying, and dumped them in the sink. If he really wanted to tidy up for Sting he would have washed them, but tidying up wasn't something Natsu was keen on. In fact, that he'd suggested he wanted to do such a thing probably made Happy worry that something was _really_ wrong.

Which was fair. Something was really wrong. He was over Rogue. Completely, utterly over Rogue. The whole fight between him and Sting was water under the bridge. So it shouldn't have bothered him so much that Sting didn't want him talking to Rogue about what happened. It shouldn't have bothered Sting to imagine him talking to Rogue. It shouldn't have bothered Rogue to talk to him at all.

He didn't blame Sting for being so upset. Nothing felt right to Natsu either.

-o-

Sting didn't know what Lector told Rogue. When the shadow slayer came home the next day, he lingered in the doorway with the cats for some time, then came to find Sting in the bedroom, bent down, wrapped his arms around him, and said nothing.

"I didn't cry," Sting said, to break the silence.

Rogue chuckled at that, and sat back on the bed. "No one said you did."

"You're not going to tell me it's okay because of hormones?"

"Would you punch me if I did?"

"You would. You gave me a black eye once, remember?"

"You teased me for wetting my pants," Rogue reminded him. "Look forward to my revenge, by the way. That baby is only going to get bigger, and it's going to make room for itself to grow by displacing the rest of your organs. Your days of continence are numbered."

"Oh goodie." Sting pushed himself up and faced Rogue. "What exactly did Lector tell you?"

"That I haven't been as good to you as I should have been. Either of you."

"And Natsu?"

"He said 'good afternoon.' "

Sting blinked, surprised by such a simple response. He hadn't been serious when he said Natsu and Rogue spoke that little. Natsu came to lend a hand so often when Rogue was away that, even if Sting still remembered the fighting between them a few years back, he'd forgotten all about the awkwardness that was coexisting in a guild with his love rival who he suspected still liked to imagine himself Alex's father. But then Rogue was the one who strung Natsu along, dragged him into their drama, broke his heart, then invited the man Rogue chose over him to his longtime home. Facing Natsu after all that probably took more on his part.

"Anything else?"

"That was all. Lucy had a list of groceries we're low on, and wanted to know where to meet Erza to drop Kiseki off with her."

"And we have money for groceries now?"

"Of course." Rogue bent forward and gave Sting a kiss on the cheek. "I'll make you whatever you want. But be warned that if you want something _really_ special, it will have to be for tomorrow. I might need time to prepare."

The words "how special" were on Sting's tongue, but he swallowed them back. Wendy had been over to alleviate some of the strain on his old injuries only a few days ago, and the medical equipment, for as much as he hated it, really did slow down the rate at which those injuries became agitated and acted up. He was up for something very special, and didn't doubt that Rogue, clearly in repentance mode, would give him what he wanted.

But after over a decade with Rogue, for their first time to be apology sex wasn't _really_ what Sting wanted. So instead he grinned, and started thinking of the most elaborate apology dinner he could set Rogue to working on.


	10. Chapter 10

Once, while still doing his best to keep Sting from feeling like he was opposed to the pregnancy, Rogue stopped in the doorway on his way out to work on some dark guild suppression job and said, "I love you."

"Mm." Sting, who's mouth was full of strawberry cake at the moment, couldn't get out a better response. A tragedy, really. Rogue had grown more open with his affection over the years, and especially gotten better with physical contact after their many failed attempts at finding a time to consummate their relationship, but for him to flat out say those three words was still uncommon, and Sting had wanted to return them.

"Is the baby alright? I haven't heard anything about them moving."

Sting nodded.

Smiling, Rogue said, "Let me know when they're active, next time. I'd like to feel them."

He was gone before Sting could swallow his cake, leaving the blond feeling like their farewell was incomplete. But that was okay. If Rogue really wanted to feel the baby, if he hadn't said that just because of whatever Lector told him about the breakdown the other week, then Sting would be happy to let him. When Rogue came back in a few days, he decided, he'd drag him to their bedroom and show him wherever the baby was kicking right then.

Two weeks after that, he was still waiting to give Rogue that chance.

Just like there was no moment where Rogue explicitly said he hadn't meant to hurt Sting, there was no moment where Lector noted that Rogue was gone. Frosch, who might have whimpered about it starting five minutes after Rogue walked out the door, had left with Rogue. Sting was able to convince himself, as the days passed, that it wasn't an unreasonable amount of time to be away on a mission to stop a dark guild. Maybe a train had broken down. Rogue might have taken a few days to gather information. It could even be that he'd gotten food poisoning and been out of commission for a day or two.

It wasn't until Natsu asked if Sting needed anyone to stay and help at night that Sting couldn't fool himself into denying something was wrong.

Natsu stared at him, waiting for a response. Was Alex the type who woke up needing her daddy in the middle of the night or not? Sting, however, didn't notice. In accepting that Rogue had been gone too long, especially without sending word, he had opened himself up to a whole new kind of speculation over why his lover might be gone so long. Was he dead? Kidnapped? He might be under torture just then.

"Sting? Hey? Do you not need help?"

"Has Rogue contacted the guild?"

Natsu hesitated a moment, then forced a grin and said, "That's right. You don't get out too often anymore, do you? It's a little late now, but tomorrow I can help wheel you to the guild. Alex can sit on my shoulders. How does that sound?"

"Has Rogue contacted the guild or not!?"

Again, Natsu hesitated.

"He hasn't…"

Bowing his head, Natsu sighed and admitted, "We haven't heard from him. Gramps sent Mira out earlier in the week to check on him, but he wasn't in the inn where he was supposed to be staying. The guild wasn't where the job information said it would be either." Realizing he'd heard nothing on the two of them making amends after what Sting had told him a month before, Natsu added, "B-but I'm sure there was just a little trouble. Rogue is… I mean, he really loves you. Even if you two hit a rough patch—"

"I know he didn't run away," Sting said. It came out sounding odd. Annoyance with the implication that he might not be aware of Rogue's loyalty drying his tone while fear for Rogue's safety made his chest and throat feel tight.

"He'll be fine, you know? Rogue isn't weak."

"Of course he isn't!" Rogue had never been weak. Maybe reluctant to get into a real fight while he was pregnant, but even when he'd had to keep Alex's safety in mind whenever things got physical, Rogue had still been able to put up some effort to defend himself. He wasn't the one who kept winding up in a wheelchair, stuck in their apartment, playing the stay at home parent while their lover left frequently to go out and work and support them.

Rogue wasn't weak, but at times Sting sure felt like he was.

"He went on that job alone?"

"Well… he didn't seem to think it warranted finding a partner."

They would have been partners automatically, if he wasn't off active duty. Rogue had managed alright on his own since Sting became pregnant, taking lighter jobs and getting help from Erza when he urgently needed to do something better paying. If something happened to him because he'd been on his own… Sting swallowed hard, trying to rid himself of the lump in his throat. If something happened because he hadn't been there to have Rogue's back…

"Don't beat yourself up over it," Natsu told him. "Rogue picked that job out. There were easier ones he could have gone for."

And he probably took that one after crunching the numbers and seeing that they were in desperate need of cash. Because he was supporting a little kid and two cats and a pregnant adult who didn't work, and because that adult begged and pleaded for another mouth to feed and they needed to be ready for that when the baby was born. It hadn't missed Sting's notice that Natsu had taken to bringing his own groceries with his increasingly frequent visits since Rogue left.

"Is anyone looking for him? What town was his job in? I could go and help search. So long as I stay away from the dark guild—"

"You stay with Alex."

"But—"

"How well is Alex taking it, with her mom missing?"

She wasn't. Rogue and Sting tried not to be gone too long without her. Never more than a few days. Mommy or Daddy disappearing briefly as a fact of life she'd learned to suffer through, although both leaving at once wasn't something she handled well. Mommy not being home for two weeks had hit her hard. The only reason there was any peace and quiet for Natsu and Sting to discuss Rogue's missing status was because she'd worn herself out throwing her seventh fit of the day earlier, and been carried back to her crib.

Had Natsu chosen to go the health concerns angle, Sting would have been all the more determined to help find Rogue. Deep down, he knew that this was likely Natsu's main concern, and the roset had only brought Alex up because he knew how Sting would take any suggestion that he wasn't fit try and rescue Rogue from whatever ill fate had befallen him. Still, thinking of how Alex might take it if her Daddy vanished too, Sting couldn't bring himself to fight Natsu for the right to go after Rogue.

"Will you do, then?" Sting asked.

"Me? You're trusting _me_ to go save _Rogue_?" Natsu asked.

"Yes. Even if I didn't trust Rogue with you, I want him safe more than I want to know that you're not going to try. And I'm trusting Lucy to kick your ass if you make anything of that."

It didn't slip Natsu's attention that Sting trusted Rogue and not him, but so long as the blond wasn't worried about him and Rogue having an affair behind his back, Natsu supposed it didn't matter _too much_ why Sting thought it wasn't a serious concern.

Granted, knowing that Rogue had cheated on him with Sting, only half a year after Sting falsely accusing Rogue of cheating on him with Natsu, of all things, Natsu couldn't help but feel a little jealous of Sting's confidence.

-o-

It was just Sting and Lector the next couple days, which made them a more efficient parenting team for Alex than when it was Sting, the cats, and Natsu, but the lack of both Rogue and Natsu meant that they were forced to drop by the guild three times a day for meals. Lector was a professional at reheating, but he'd never attempted to cook. Having seen Sting's attempts, he also knew better than to let him attempt again.

It was on the second day of dinner at the guild that Natsu rushed back in. He kept his back to Sting, ignoring the blond as he called to know what was going on, and instead ran straight to Wendy.

Leaving Lector and whoever happened to be at the table with him to keep Alex happy for a few minutes, Sting started to wheel himself over to Natsu, then gave up and got out of the wheelchair to walk over to Natsu. It was only moderately painful to put weight on his leg, and he didn't have the patience to wheel himself around with motion sickness when there might be news about Rogue.

When he got there, it became obvious why Natsu had ignored him. He had found news indeed, and it didn't look good. Frosch lay unconscious on the table, her frog suit torn and bloodied. Seeing her, Sting's froze, and he needed to make sure she was breathing before he could get air in himself.

"Where was she?"

"Found her lying on the ground in the woods," Natsu said. "She had a fresh trail, so I think she must have lasted a while before collapsing. Probably travel a ways on foot."

"On foot?"

"Mm." Natsu hesitated before explaining how he came to that conclusion. "There were bloody footprints."

"Why on foot?" Sting asked no one in particular. Frosch was better in the air than Lector, and both cats knew it. Since there was so little else that Frosch was aware of being better at, she loved flying when the opportunity presented itself. Fleeing an attacker would absolutely be a reason to fly.

Unless…

Sting bit his lip, recalling occasions where Frosch had thrown herself into the fray trying to defend Rogue. More than once she'd stepped in under the delusion that she could protect him when he could no longer defend himself. It worked, in a way. Knowing that Frosch would endanger herself if he slipped up was an excellent motivator for Rogue, and he rarely got himself into such dire straits that Frosch felt he needed her.

"How bad… Is she going to be okay?"

Wendy nodded. "She lost a lot of blood, but not enough to kill her. She's still exhausted. If she's given time to rest, she should recover."

He opened his mouth to say he could take care of her, but the words didn't come out. He already had to comfort Alex constantly over her missing mommy. Nurturing Frosch back to health while trying to stall the decline of his own on top of that… Not to mention no one exactly got rest when Alex was up at all hours of the night crying about how Rogue wasn't there to tuck her in. Not that Rogue had _ever_ been the one to tuck her in.

"Wendy… can you take care of her?"

"Eh? Me? But Frosch is Rogue's… are you sure you don't want to?"

Sting was sure he couldn't, but to admit as much was more than he could do, and he only shook his head.

"Alright…"

"Are you sure that's alright?" Natsu asked?

It wasn't. And Rogue would probably never forgive him for not doing whatever he could for Frosch. Even if… even if the best Sting could do was leave her in more capable hands.

"It's fine. Natsu, did you hear anything about Rogue?"

"N-no… As soon as Frosch is better, we'll ask her if she remembers something."

"Alright." Sting stood. "Let me know what she says."

-o-

Three days later, Frosch woke up. No one told Sting.

The rescue party left without a word to him.

Frosch never asked to leave Wendy's.


	11. Chapter 11

"They should be back soon."

"Okay."

Lucy looked away from the window to study Sting. He lay curled up in bed, like he had the past two days, staring blankly at his wall. She had been the one tasked with bringing him the news that they'd learned what became of Rogue, and were going to rescue him. Since he dark guild that had captured him planned on using him for ransom, it was assumed he would be in, if not good condition, then good enough that he could recover.

It was supposed to be good news, but he'd fallen silent when she told him. After a few minutes of her prodding, he'd risen and excused himself to bed, and that was it. She hadn't seen him step out into the hall since. He only got out of bed when he absolutely had to, and while she'd tried to bribe him with food, even reminded him that his baby was counting on him to keep it fed, he hadn't budged. Eventually, rather than her persuading Sting to get out of bed, Lector persuaded her to bring food to him.

"Do you want to wash up? Rogue's going to worry about you if he comes home and you look like you haven't taken care of yourself."

She hoped that was tactful enough, saying he only _looked_ like he'd given up on self-care.

Sting glanced up at her, and considered telling her that Rogue would worry no matter what, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

"Well… I guess I know you've had lunch… Should I go get Frosch?"

Sting didn't respond.

"Alright then. I'll be back in a little bit. Oh! I'll take Alex with me… in case she needs anything…" Lucy hesitated, waiting for Sting to reply, and when he didn't, added, "You take care."

Sting waited until she had left before pushing himself upright, then decided he'd been rather stay horizontal. He flopped back over and shut his eyes, trying to block out thoughts of what had happened for Frosch and Rogue and how he hadn't been able to do anything. How everyone had gone out of their way to make sure he couldn't even try to help. That he'd been too stunned with that revelation to even take care of Alex only made it worse.

Rogue was right. This whole thing was a bad idea.

Closing his eyes wasn't working, so Sting tried to pull the covers over his head and block out all sounds too. Even when Lector shook him, he refused to acknowledge anything going on around him.

Then he felt the blankets roll back and arms wrap around him, and someone's lips pressed against his cheek. Curious, Sting let his consciousness surface again to see what had happened.

"Welcome back to the world of the living," Rogue said. "Lector thought you went catatonic."

Sting's throat constricted so tightly that when he tried to respond, all he could get out was a small, choked noise before bursting into tears.

"W-whoa! Sting? Is everything alright."

Sting shook his head, but his throat still felt tight, and there was no way he could manage to say everything that was wrong. He settled for explaining one problem. The one that took the fewest words.

"I thought I'd lost you."

Rogue smiled gently, and pulled Sting up into a sitting position. "I'm here now. I'm not weak, you know. It would take more than something like _that_ to do me in."

But whatever _that_ was that the dark guild had put Rogue through, Sting could see that it hadn't been pleasant. His torso was heavily bandaged, and his arm was in a splint. Beneath the wrapping on Rogue's thigh, he thought he saw the tip of a burn mark.

"Does Alex know you're back yet?"

Rogue looked away. For a second, Sting thought it was a sign of guilt. That he wasn't the only one who had failed to address their daughter's needs. Then he realized Rogue wasn't looking away so much as looking at his leg. His leg which a little toddler was clinging too.

"I think she's determined to never let me leave again."

"Well… it would be a bad idea to go on another job with her hugging you like that the whole time."

"She has to sleep eventually."

"So the plan is now to bail when our daughter passes out form exhaustion. Do you ever think we might be bad parents?"

Rogue, who had yet to hear anything about Sting's breakdown or Alex and Frosch ending up in the care of other guild members, laughed.

"You should wash up," Rogue told him. "Lucy says you haven't felt well the past couple days, but I'm told you've been to the guild often enough that Wendy has helped with your injuries… right?"

Sting nodded.

"So was it morning sickness?"

"No."

Rogue's expression softened. "Were you worried for me?"

"Yeah." He'd been worried sick about Rogue. And disgusted with himself.

"Well, I'm back now, so you don't have an excuse to stop taking care of yourself anymore. I can draw up a bath for you, if you need a minute to get ready. You haven't had much to eat lately, have you? I'll make something special for you. For both of us. I'd like to celebrate being back."

"You hate cooking."

"But I like pie, and the guild doesn't serve any."

That was hard logic to argue with. Sting pushed himself up and out of bed, feeling everything creak after several days of disuse, and told Rogue, "Apple, please."

"Apple season isn't for half a year. Strawberry."

"We can't do apples?"

"Well, technically I didn't finish that job, so I wasn't paid. And any apples we bought now wouldn't be fresh anyway." Rogue gave his leg a test wiggle, found Alex still clinging to it despite having dozed off, and ruffled her hair. "Strawberry pie is still good. I'll make enough for all five of…" He froze, realizing something was horribly amiss. "Where's Frosch? I-I was told Natsu found her a few days before me. Is she alright?"

"Wendy took care of her."

"Oh." Rogue visibly relaxed. "I'll have to thank Wendy for that when I pick her up. I don't suppose you would mind if the pie came a little later in the day so I could do that…?"

"Go ahead."

Rogue waited only long enough to pick Alex up in his arms—since it didn't seem like she was going to stop holding onto him unless he held onto her—and took off as fast as he could to retrieve his darling cat. Sting might have felt abandoned, if he didn't know that he would do the same for Lector. Assuming he was _capable_ of moving that fast to go and make sure Lector was safe and sound. Hell, even if he was, someone would probably grab him and hold him down so he couldn't hurt himself, or refuse to tell him where Lector was so he wouldn't be tempted to go at all.

He stopped on the way to the tub to examine himself in the mirror, and scowled at his stomach.

"This is your fault."

The baby kicked in response.

While trying to get pregnant, Sting had imagined that every little motion from the baby would be taken as an affectionate gesture. He'd fantasized about rubbing a hand lovingly over his stomach and feeling the baby reach out and place its own hand where his was.

Now that he was actually pregnant, Sting took it as a sign that the baby was fighting him for disliking it.

That idea disturbed him. Had Rogue ever said he outright disliked Alex? He'd made it no secret that he disliked being pregnant, to put it mildly, but Sting had no recollection of his expressing negative feelings for the child he was pregnant with.

He needed to find someone else to blame for his predicament. Not himself. He already did enough feeling lousy about himself as of late. Not Rogue either. Rogue had been against him having a baby for fear of everything that _had_ gone wrong. He couldn't even really blame the truck driver who had struck him and given him the injuries that were acting up in the first place. That man had lost control of his vehicle through no fault of his own (unless you wanted to count him choosing to enter a demolition derby in the first place) and even then, Sting had deliberately run in front of it. It also wasn't really Rogue's fault that Sting had needed to run in front of the truck to throw him to safety, since he had been pushed onto the track.

That left… well, Sting didn't know who'd pushed Rogue. Rogue, when recounting the incident, wasn't even sure how deliberate the push had been. So that left the people Rogue had been running from when he was pushed. Sting and Natsu. Since Sting had already disqualified himself for being to blame, Natsu was his only option.

And why not? It seemed fair. Rogue had bailed on them because he was fed up with their fighting over him, which wouldn't have happened if Natsu hadn't gone and pounced on Rogue as soon as he and Sting hit a rough patch in their relationship. He was obviously the _only_ one to blame for all the problems Sting was dealing with as of late.

Not that Sting was stupid enough to take out any of his frustration on Natsu. Not when the roset regularly brought him good food, provided extra hands to help with Alex, and saved Rogue and Frosch. Still, it felt nice to fester over something other than his own inadequacies for a change. Between mentally ragging on Natsu and a good long soak in hot water, Sting almost felt good by the time Rogue and Frosch returned.

Since there was no pie yet, Rogue had purchased doughnuts on the way home, and Sting sat at the kitchen table and munched on one while the family caught up. Frosch, having been unconscious at the time, had no recollection of Sting insisting someone else take her, and thus had no opportunity to tattle on him. She alternated between snuggling into Sting and Rogue's laps, mostly Rogue's. Sting didn't have much lap available for snuggling into. Alex babbled on about what fun it had been staying with auntie Bisca and how Asuka didn't know the rules of a proper tea party. At least, Sting thought it was Bisca and Asuka. Alex couldn't remember any names, referring to the people who had taken care of her as "Big Lady" and "Little Lady" as she recounted the highlights of the last few days without her parents, but Sting vaguely recalled being told that Bisca was going to look after Alex until he was better.

It didn't seem to have occurred to Rogue earlier that there was anything odd about picking Alex up from a guild mate's house. Sting had hoped Rogue might assume it was only a play date—especially since Lucy still brought Alex over during the day, in the hopes that it might rouse Sting from his depression. Listening to Alex, however, Rogue caught on to the fact that she had spent multiple nights with someone else.

The look Rogue gave him when he realized this wasn't as accusatory as Sting had feared. Instead, Rogue's face held so much concern that it made Sting nauseas. He'd abandoned Frosch. He'd been so wrapped up in self-pity that he hadn't been able to look after their daughter. If Rogue had been mad about that, then Sting would know that his lover had expected more of him. To see that worried look, it felt like Sting had met some worst fear again. Like Rogue already expected him to fail.

"Would it be alright if I wait in bed until the pie is ready?"

Rogue shook his head. "I threw the sheets in the wash. They were covered in crumbs." At that mention, he shot Sting the first accusatory look of the afternoon. "If your back is bothering you, you can lie on the couch. Where's your brace?"

"I hate lying down in it."

"Noted. Now where is it?"

"I threw it out the window. Lucy set it somewhere in the living room."

And with that, they'd reached the point where the elephant in the room could no longer be ignored. "Something went wrong while I was gone."

"Mostly, the issue was that you were gone," Sting informed him.

"You threw your splint out the window and left Alex with someone else because you were worried about me?"

"I threw the splint out the window because I hate it. You weren't there to breath down my neck about all this crap I have to use for my stupid injuries, and I wanted to throw something anyway."

Scowling, Rogue got up and began to shuffle through the cabinets for the cooking ingredients.

"Rogue?"

"Sorry for caring about your wellbeing," Rogue said. "Go lie down while I make your fucking pie."

"Papa, what's fucking?" Alex asked.

Both parents froze, looking to her, then to one another.

"Gotta lie down. No sheets is fine," Sting told him, darting for their room and the unmade bed.

"W-wait! Hold on! You had a hand in this!" Rogue yelled after him, even though Sting had already shut the door. "Come back! You're the one who's good with her!"

-o-

Sting contemplated bracing a chair against the door, but his fight with Rogue wasn't nearly _that_ bad. And between Rogue's melding with shadows and the cats' flight, Sting was the only one who couldn't get in when the door was blocked anyway.

He sat down on the bed and looked out that window, wondering how long it would take Rogue to pursue him. The answer was a long time, which irritated Sting until he realized he wasn't going anywhere and Rogue knew it. With a bad knee and back, he wasn't about to jump out a window. Especially while pregnant. In fact, with the baby getting bigger, he didn't even know if he could fit through the window. It was already getting harder to pick things up off the floor. If he wanted to leave, he would have to go through the front door—past Rogue—to run for it.

That gave Rogue ample time to somehow convince Alex that the word she'd heard wasn't one worth adding to her vocabulary and make the pie. Sting didn't know if Rogue accomplished the first or not, but when the shadow slayer finally came to check on him, he had a slice in hand.

"Took you long enough."

"I assumed you wouldn't want me to worry."

The words came out clipped, and they both winced when they noticed that.

"Sorry," Rogue said before Sting could. "I've… had a rough time lately. I'm still a little on edge. Pie?"

"In bed?"

"Just this once. Lean forward so your crumbs fall onto the plate."

Sting obliged, even though his stomach made it a little awkward.

"Sorry," he said himself once Rogue sat down beside him. "My week hasn't been great either, but yours _would_ have been worse."

"Nothing went wrong, did it?" Rogue asked. "It's alright if you had to rush to the hospital. I mean, not really, but you can tell me if something went wrong. I had a few unplanned trips myself when I was pregnant with Alex."

"Oh yeah. The one where we thought you went into labor early."

"Yes. The one where you and Natsu were too busy fighting to notice me panicking because I thought I was in labor." Sting had to glance at Rogue and see that he was grinning to be certain that this detail hadn't been recalled out of malice.

"Sorry?"

"It's alright. I did… _encourage_ you two to go after one another. Even if I told you not to. But I'd like to be as aware as possible of your health."

"I wasn't in the hospital."

"Was it an issue with Alex, then? I heard she took it harder than you when I disappeared."

"Not really."

"Then what happened."

"Alex didn't take it harder than me," Sting clarified. "Or… maybe you being gone in particular she took harder. I just…"

He froze there, realizing how hard pressed he would be to speak his mind without breaking down. He didn't need Rogue to see him breaking down.

"Just…?"

"Nothing."

"Couples that don't communicate properly fall apart," Rogue told him. "As we've both experienced."

Ouch. Fair point. Although the communication error that caused their last breakup was mostly on Rogue.

"I'm no good for anything," Sting admitted.

"Where did you get that idea from?"

"I can't work. I can't walk. When Frosch came back, I couldn't deal with taking care of her. I _told_ Wendy to keep her, Rogue. I was offered her back and I told Wendy to keep her instead. Everyone left to rescue you without even telling me. I don't know. Maybe they thought I'd try to sneak into the rescue mission, which is stupid, because I know I'd be no help when I can't walk or fight but it still _sucked_ to be left out and—"

"Hold that thought." Rogue reached forward and brushed a tear of Sting's cheek. "Okay. You were saying?"

"I just… I don't know. I lost it. I couldn't do anything. Lucy came over to take care of Alex because I couldn't bring myself to, but she wasn't sure she could do day and night care, so she slept over with Bisca's family." Upon finishing, Sting rubbed his own eye.

"You're not useless."

"Yes I am. I hate this. I hate being pregnant. You were right. This was a bad idea."

Rather than deliver the long dreaded 'I told you so,' Rogue said, "We're too far in for that. We can find out the baby's gender soon—tomorrow if you want, and come up with a name and you can look forward to having it instead of wishing you'd avoided this. And even if you had a few days where you weren't able to do it on your own, you're note _useless_. Now go make yourself useful and convince Alex to stop swearing."

"If you haven't managed by now, it's a lost cause," Sting told him. "She's bound to have figured out it's a forbidden word by this point. The temptation to say it will be too great. Any punishment for using it is going to seem like a game to her. Where is she, anyway?"

"I put her in her crib as punishment for swearing. Then I said that since I swore too I also had to go to bed."

Sting laughed at that. "She's out for the night then?"

Rogue nodded. "For a few hours, at least. Lector and Frosch are keeping her company until she stops pouting and goes to sleep."

"If we're counting pouting time _and_ sleeping time, that gives us half the night."

"It would be a rare opportunity to catch up on sleep, if we hadn't both finished having a few nights without her."

Sting hesitated a moment, then set the pie dish on the floor and asked, "Do you want to do something else with this time, then?"

"She might hear us."

"We can be quiet."

From experience, Rogue doubted anyone could be quiet, and he strongly suspected that Sting would be loud. But it had been a few years since the last time he'd had sex, and Sting was still a virgin, and it seemed like a nice way to celebrate reuniting.

"Let me get the sheets out of the drier first. They'll be easier to clean than the mattress."

Sting grabbed Rogue as he stood and pulled him back onto the bed.

"Now."

"Okay."

Rogue needed no more direction after that. In fact, he led. He flipped Sting down onto his back and crawled on top of him, shucking off his own clothes as he went. Sting, half pinned down, didn't even bother with his shirt. Instead, he tried to slide out of his pants, wiggling to get them down off of a waistline that he felt was getting wider than it out to be.

The week of forgoing his brace whenever he could caught up to him with one particular twist, and he hissed in pain. Rogue, at the same time, felt the burnt skin beneath his bandages stretch uncomfortably with all the sudden motion, and withdrew.

"Maybe just cuddling."

"Yeah. That sound good."

"Bedsheets? It will be more comfortable with a blanket."

"Go for it. It's harder to kill the mood for cuddling."

Sting slid off the bed while Rogue ran out of the room, and sat beside it as his lover hastily pulled the sheets on. When Rogue lifted him up, careful not to disturb his injuries, Sting made no protest.

They curled up against one another, warm under the sheets, and were comfortable with their usual level of intimacy.

"I probably will die a virgin."

"We're still young. We have _decades_ to make this happen. Sooner or later it has to work."

"I'm starting to doubt that."

Rogue chuckled. "It's possible that things will get in the way forever. I'm really glad, though."

"Why?"

"You stopped crying so fast."


	12. Chapter 12

They didn't make that appointment to learn the baby's gender. Neither of them felt like getting out of bed the next day, much less walking further than their front door. Since Rogue had drawn up some emergency fund Sting didn't know about to restock their fridge for the pie, neither saw any need to leave the house, and spent the next two days recuperating and assuring Alex that they would be there forever. Even the essential task of asking Wendy to treating Sting's injuries was delegated to Lector and Frosch, who had to convince her to come to their apartment to do so.

It was only Sting's injuries she looked at. Rogue, insisting that he couldn't impose on her any more than they already did, declined to have his burns healed or even examined.

It wasn't like Wendy ever expected anything in return for healing a guild mate, so Sting wished he'd accepted her offer. He spent the whole day watching Rogue work, flinching occasionally when he did something to irritate one of his wounds, but refusing to take a break. Someone had to put the dishes back in their cabinet, and he was happy to be that someone if it meant Sting not having to overwork himself. Sting would have thrown a fit over being excluded from tasks again, had Alex not found an old chalk set and kept him busy with her floor drawings.

Rogue was still washing those off by the time Sting and Alex went to bed, and he didn't see when Rogue came in to pass out for the night. It seemed to him that, despite the burns, Rogue was still in better shape to handle things than he was. At least until he woke up at three in the morning to Alex's screaming.

"How long has that been going on?" Sting asked, to which he got no response.

"Rogue? Hey?"

He shook the shadow slayer, and still received no response.

That was unnerving. Between the child's shrieks from across the hall and Sting's not so gentle shaking, Rogue ought to at least stir. Sting but a hand up against Rogue's mouth to make sure he was still breathing, and felt air come out. Hot air. The hand flew up to his forehead, which was much too warm.

His immediate instinct, since Rogue was right there, was to address the situation with Rogue first, but whatever Alex wanted would be less complex and time consuming than nursing a sick person back to health. He dragged himself out of bed and went across the hall to check on Alex, who turned out to have wet herself. He changed her, wiped her down, and put her back to bed, then returned to Rogue.

Sting wracked his brain to try and remember what it was that Rogue did when _he_ was sick. Homemade chicken and rice soup. Pills to keep fever down. A reprieve from housework. Sting couldn't manage the first, and store bought soup wasn't an option when he didn't know where Rogue kept the rainy day fund, as were the pills. But managing the house—with the exception of cooking—was something he thought he could handle.

-o-

Rogue slept through the morning, so Sting kept himself busy. He pulled leftovers from the fridge for breakfast and played with Alex afterward, helping her sort her toys by which stuffed animals were good and which were evil. Being unable to recognize the telltale signs of goodness and sin, he couldn't do much beyond place them wherever she instructed, but it pleased her that her daddy was helping with this important task.

Once Alex fell asleep, he took to cleaning. He might not have been able to use the kitchen as anything more than a storage unit, but he could make that storage unit sparkle. Lector helped too, picking up the little messes Frosch left everywhere as she dedicated herself to getting the house tidied up for Rogue.

They did leftovers for lunch too, and it was mid-afternoon by the time Rogue finally got up. Sting hadn't heard him at all, but he turned around while carrying freshly washed dishes and saw the shadow slayer there.

"Hey. How are you feeling?"

"Fine. Where's—"

"Really? Because you look like shit."

Glaring, Rogue said, "I have a headache and my throat is dry. Where's your back brace?"

Sting pointed to the kitchen table. "I only took it off for a minute. It's hard to reach up high with it on. And it itches."

"Get clothes that cover your stomach and you won't have to feel it on your skin." Rogue coughed. "Here. Let me handle that."

"Ew. No. You just coughed into your hand. You don't get to handle the clean dishes."

"I can wash my hands."

"You'll cough on them again."

"How much of an issue will that be when someone needs to cook?" Rogue asked.

Sting paused, considering that one. He couldn't afford to buy anything premade, he couldn't cook, and he certainly couldn't ask Natsu to come over and cook for them. The absolute last thing he ever wanted to do was ask Natsu to help him with nursing Rogue back to health.

"I can make dinner," Lector offered. "I can follow a recipe without burning the house down."

"Problem solved," Sting declared. "No cooking. Go back to bed. You're sick."

Rogue coughed again, this time so hard that phlegm came out and landed on his hand, to which he grimaced in disgust. This didn't stop him from saying, "I'm fine."

"And I have a great physique and no back problems," Sting said. "Wash that off and get back to bed. Let me take care of things for once."

"You shouldn't be up, Sting. Especially moving around like that. The baby is enough of a strain on your body without you doing anything to aggravate your injuries."

"And you shouldn't be up either. Because you have a fever. I know you have a fever. Let me do this, and take it easy so you can recover faster and I won't have to do this for you anymore."

Rogue wiped his hand off on his pants and tried to grab the plate from Sting's hand.

Sting snatched it back. "You worked in the Fairy Tail bar the whole time you were pregnant. I think I can survive a few days of dish duty."

He dropped the bowl back in the sink, washed it, and set it in its proper place in the cupboard, only to turn around and see Rogue washing the next dish.

"Give me that."

"Rest."

"_You _rest. You have a fever."

"And you have a spinal injury and a damaged knee. You shouldn't be up and about like this. Especially without your braces on."

"Why do you always insist on doing everything! I'm not an invalid!"

"I don't want you to become one!" Rogue snapped. "I don't want you to let your injuries get so bad that they can't be healed! And it's my fault you're hurt, so—"

He broke off into a coughing fit.

Sting took advantage of this to push Rogue away before returning to the dishes.

"It's not your fault," he said when Rogue was done coughing. "I _chose_ to run out there and get hit. Now I'm choosing to take care of you for a few days while you get over your cold. And you can't stop me."

That was a lie. He was out of shape, and Rogue could easily drag him back to bed and strap him down. And it hadn't been a choice to injure himself. Not really. The only other option was to let Rogue be hurt, and Sting didn't consider that an option at all. He hoped Rogue wasn't full enough of himself to realized that.

Luckily for his lie, Rogue didn't seem to care enough to focus on it. Unluckily for Sting, Rogue was instead focused on how to minimize his workload.

"Fine. Do the dishes. I can handle the rest of the cleaning while you handle things here."

-o-

Two days later, Lector turned up at the guild, looking for anyone who might be willing to follow him home and lend a hand.

Erza was there at the time. Lector coming on his own meant that not only was Sting not able to come, but Rogue wasn't able to leave Sting in Lector's care and show up either. And if neither of them were able to make it, then who was looking after Alex? Not knowing what she would find at their apartment, she handed Kiseki off to Bisca before ordering Lector to lead her to the twin slayers at once.

To her relief, Alex was calm when they arrived. She and Frosch were in the living room, playing with her stuffed animals. Whatever Alex said the various dolls were, be it a horse, a prince, the queen, Mommy, or all four at once, Frosch seemed to truly believe her. The frog-cat probably made for a better playmate than Kiseki, she realized with a grin. Her little boy was only interested in playing knight.

That grin faltered when she realized she saw neither Rogue nor Sting watching over her. She knew they might let the cats babysit Alex, when one was working and the other needed a rest, but even then, whoever stayed home with her usually stayed in the area to supervise.

Alex saw her, smiled, and then cocked her head in confusion when Erza didn't smile back.

"Sis?"

Erza forced a smile. "Hey, sweetie. Where's your mommy and daddy?"

"Bed. Mommy's sleepy. He went to sleep in the hall and Daddy said he had to go to bed. But now Daddy's in bed too."

Both bedridden then? She could guess why Sting might not be able to get up, but how did Rogue…? She didn't remember his injuries being that bad.

"I'm going to go wake them."

"Okay. Ask Mommy for cookies."

Erza gave the kitchen counter a cursory glance, but saw no cookies. "I'll see if he can make some. I'll buy you some if he can't."

She would smack anyone who promised Kiseki treats whenever he asked, but she had a sinking feeling that Alex would soon be in need of distraction, and sweets were always a good start when it came to that.

Going into Sting and Rogue's room, Erza feared the worst. Her immediate thought when she threw the door open was that she was relieved to see the two still breathing. Then she looked closely and saw that Rogue's breathing looked strained. Surely Sting wouldn't sleep so peacefully if Rogue were in trouble. Did he not realize?

"Sting? Rogue? Get up."

Rogue mumbled something, opened his eyes, then shut them again. Sting was more responsive, pushing himself up slightly, but wincing as he did.

"Where's your back brace?" Erza asked, reaching out and offering Sting a hand.

He took her hand, letting her pull him into a sitting position and cringing all the while. The ordeal made him lose his breath, and he didn't answer her until he'd caught it.

"No idea."

"Why don't you have it on?"

"It isn't comfortable."

"So you're comfortable now."

He glared at her.

"Lector came to me for help," Erza said, rather than continue to harass an injured pregnant person who already knew they'd made a terrible mistake. "I assume he wants me to take you to the hospital."

Sting shook his head. "Rogue first."

"But—"

"Rogue first. I'd have dragged him there myself if I could stand."

Erza scowled at this, and looked to Rogue again. Now that she was right beside their bed, she could clearly see that his cheeks were flushed, and there was a faint sheen of sweat.

Fever. He hadn't done anything to stop his wounds from being infected, and now he had a fever. Had Sting further injured himself trying to take care of Rogue, or had Rogue failed to take care of himself because he was so busy tending to Sting? Both? It didn't matter. Neither of them could take care of one another now.

"Lector, keep a watch over Alex," Erza commanded. "Sting, stay put. I'll get Rogue to the hospital and then come back for you."

"Wendy isn't here?"

"Visiting Chelia. She'll be back tomorrow. Would you rather I take you to the guild infirmary?"

She wasn't surprised to see him shake his head. That would put him too far away from Rogue.

"Alright." Scooping Rogue up and holding him princess style, she said, "I'll be back for you soon. Whatever idiocy you two did, next time, call one of us for help before it gets to be this bad."


	13. Chapter 13

Rogue didn't have that clear a memory of what had happened. He knew he'd come down with something, and he and Sting had quarreled over who should take care of who. How they got from that to him waking up in a hospital, he couldn't say.

From the sounds outside his room, Rogue discerned that he was in a unit for physical trauma, which didn't make much sense to him. He'd been injured, sure, but not severely. His throat ached and his mouth was dry, and simply turning his head towards the door made him so dizzy he felt like he was about to throw up, but none of that had to do with broken bones or wounds in need of stiches. There weren't any obvious features of the apartment he could think of that might have harmed him if he collapsed without warning either. They'd picked the place because it was wheelchair friendly.

Perhaps he'd slipped in the tub? He heard somewhere that it was common to forget head injuries. Maybe he smacked his head on the way down?

It was only after a minute or so of pondering what he was going in a hospital bed that Rogue consciously acknowledged that he was not alone in the room. Sting's presence was such a constant that he hadn't even given it much thought initially, particularly since the steady sound of his lover's breathing indicated that he was fast asleep.

Rogue turned to look at him, dreading that he might see Sting passed out in a chair, and was relieved to see that he'd been provided another hospital bed.

Then it struck him that Sting's injuries would land him in a physical trauma unit.

"Sting?" he called out, unable to keep the nervous edge from his voice. "Sting? Are you awake?

"Am now," the blond murmured.

His eyes opened slowly, almost resisting wakefulness after such deep rest, but when it fully registered for the white slayer that Rogue was awake, they snapped wide open. He tried to sit up as well, but winced and lay back down.

"Are you alright?" Rogue asked.

"Sore." Sting yawned. "They wanted to shove a metal rod up my back. I had to tell them I didn't want surgery until the baby was born. Oh. And they're not discharging us until I get an ultrasound."

"Us?" They were_ both_ patients? He'd started to suspect as much but… wait… "Where's Alex?"

"Erza's. She was… not happy with us. I was thinking of naming the kid Mint, by the way. Does that sound too much like a girl's name? I thought it could work either way."

"Sting, why are we in the hospital, and if we're here for something bad, how appropriate do you think it is to talk about baby names right now?"

"Well, you woke up, so I'm taking that as a sign that things aren't life threatening."

"_Sting_."

"You had a fever and you weren't waking up and I _maybe_ should have worn my splint a little more. But the doctor managed to get your fever down before it got to be fatal, and he said that once you were awake, if you were coherent, then it would be alright to send you home with some medicine so long as you promised to take it easy."

"Okay, but you—"

"I'm fine. I just need to see Wendy."

"Why _didn't_ you?" Rogue demanded. "Sting, what if you permanently injure yourself?"

Sting looked more wounded by the question than he did his injuries. "You wouldn't wake up. I can't sit right at your bedside, but I didn't want to leave you. Besides, I'm not going to do myself any more harm lying down."

He had a point, and the sentiment was too sweet for Rogue to rebuke it. In fact, if he tried, Sting would likely remind him that he'd been on a similar bed watch after the incident that gave Sting his injuries in the first place. But he'd been more justified in worrying, Rogue thought. It took Sting six days to regain consciousness back then.

Actually… "How long was I unconscious?"

"Maybe half a day before Erza came?" Sting guessed. You collapsed on the floor. We… Frosch and Lector got you into bed." And Sting too, no doubt. That could have been the straw that not so figuratively broke the camel's back. "Then another half a day or so here? A little more than half. You sort of woke up twice, but you weren't coherent. How are you feeling?"

"Like death kicked me in the nuts."

"Better then, if you can think to say something like that."

Rogue managed a weak smile. He wouldn't have thought to describe himself as better by any stretch, but being aware of how terrible he felt likely _was_ better than losing consciousness.

"Don't do that again, okay Rogue? You could have killed yourself. Let me take care of you sometimes too."

Rogue kept smiling and said nothing, because he knew that Sting wouldn't want to have it pointed out to him that trying to help had left him unable to sit up. Because he wasn't clear headed enough with his fever to think of anything else to say but to tell Sting that he wasn't in any shape to take care of others by himself, and he knew better than to say that.

Sting smiled back, but even fever addled, Rogue could see how fake a smile it was.

-o-

"Alex stays with me." Rogue was going to protest that one, but Erza's glare killed any words before they left his throat. "It's fortunate that she didn't get sick from you, and you and Sting don't need any additional responsibilities until you work out how to take care of yourselves."

"Alex was fine when you found her," Rogue argued, although not having been conscious at the time, he wasn't certain. "We can take care of her."

"I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you can't take care of yourselves at the same time. Natsu and Lucy have been helping with her, haven't they? Once you're better, perhaps they could come more often? Or will you be alright to take care of Sting and Alex by yourself at that point."

"I managed before. But work—"

"If you can take care of Kiseki for me as well, I'll give you a portion of my earnings as if we went on a job together," Erza cut him off to say. "You'll be fine once your fever has passed, but Sting's injuries can't be treated until this child is born, and he clearly won't cooperate with his doctor's orders unless _you're_ there to make him."

Recalling Sting's claim of having thrown his brace out the window, Rogue nodded.

This wasn't a conversation they would have if Sting was still in the room. The doctor had come by again with a new drug for Rogue, and if he didn't feel fantastic after taking it, he at least felt like he could move around without his legs giving out beneath him. So long as he didn't make any sudden movements, he didn't feel like vomiting each time he moved either. Once he'd been able to show Sting that he was sufficiently medicated, Sting had agreed to go with his nurse and receive and ultrasound. The nurse, having checked in one him every fifteen minutes for several hours, was elated to be able to cross that task of her list. Wendy having stopped in to see him earlier, he found it manageable to get into a chair and be wheeled away.

"Won't it be… I wouldn't dream of asking you to support us."

"Then we'll see about going off active duty. You've helped out around the guild before. Sting and Alex can hang out while you work."

"He might not like that…"

"Tough. You two scared me half to death yesterday. This isn't going to happen again. Besides, he only has to put up with it for… um…"

"Three months," Rogue supplied.

"Oh. Well, if Jellal could spend half a year confined to my house, Sting can spend a few months sitting around the guild. It's not like he didn't already swing by to socialize anyway."

She wasn't wrong, but there was a difference between going down to the guild to see all your friends, and being dragged there so someone could keep an eye on you while they worked.

Rogue was searching for the best way to explain this difference without it sounding like he fully rejected the idea when a nurse poked her head into the room and said, "Which one of you is the father of Mr. Eucliffe's child?"

They both started at her, surprised by the question. Rogue and Sting stuck so close together in public that when people realized Sting was pregnant, no one questioned who the father was. Erza, in the meantime, was so unaccustomed to being associated with a pregnant man that she could never convince anyone that she was a father. After all, she couldn't exactly announce to the world that she not only knew where the dangerous escaped convict Jellal Fernandes was, but had also sheltered him while he was pregnant with her son.

"I am," Rogue finally thought to say.

"Would you like to see the ultrasound?"

"Is he asking for me to see it."

"No. He's… perhaps you could come anyway?"

Rogue looked to Erza for an explanation, but she only shrugged.

"Alright. Give me a minute."

Since he couldn't walk straight for long, Erza helped him down the hall, up two flights of stairs, and into the maternity ward. (Even if Rogue hadn't been sick, the elevator was out of the question.) By the time they were to Sting's room, the ultrasound machine had been turned off. This suited Rogue fine. His own ultrasounds had never impressed him much, and the only one they'd had before from Sting had been so grainy and undefined that he wasn't sure how anyone had been able to see a baby in it.

Then he looked from the inactive machine to Sting's pale face, and his heart plummeted to his stomach.

"Is the baby okay?"

"They're fine," the doctor, who Rogue thought was grinning far too broadly given Sting's state, assure him. "Your… husband? He just needs a moment."

Because giving Sting a moment when he was upset about something always went _so_ well. Rogue got the idea. Frankly, he preferred going off on his own to settle down whenever something went wrong. Hell, sometimes it even did Sting good to have a moment of privacy after a fight, but Sting wasn't the type who liked to resolve things on his own. He was too socially dependent for that. He liked to know someone was there for him.

"What happened? As you sure the baby's alright? Are his injuries worse now?"

"No, no. They babies are fine, and there's nothing wrong with your husband."

Something about that sentence didn't sound right. Rogue considered it while he sat down beside Sting and wrapped an arm gently around him, then said, "We aren't married."

"I'm sorry. Boyfriend. Do you want to know the gender?"

He wanted to know what was distressing Sting more. In fact, he wanted this idiot doctor who was so dismissive of his precious Sting's distress gone. As it happened, Sting's intent to know the gender ahead of time meant Rogue was going to hear it whether he preferred it be a surprise or not, and letting the doctor give the news would give him reason to leave faster.

"Fine," Rogue said, and he made sure to scowl and glare when he did.

The look made the doctor hesitate, but then he went on grinning and declared, "They're both boys?"

Sting sobbed and turned to bury his head in Rogue's chest, and for a second, Rogue forgot that he needed to comfort him.

"Both?"

-o-

"Twins," Sting moaned. "Why did it have to be twins?"

_You'll like them once they're here_. Rogue considered saying that, but held off. Sting knew he would like them when they arrived. Or at least, Rogue thought he knew that. Sting liked Alex and Kiseki too much to spite any other children of his.

It didn't really matter. Not in the current situation, at least. Sting's mind was on how miserable his pregnancy was. He didn't care about how he'd feel in three months, when they had two screaming infants to pacify at once. No… no that wasn't right. Two little bundles of joy to brighten their lives. There. At least one of them had to be excited about the kid. Kids.

Oh God. They were going to have twins.

"How did that stupid girl mess up and make me pregnant with _two_ kids?"

"Well, she does have a history of making men pregnant with more children than they wanted," Rogue pointed out. There was himself and Jellal. And Lyon. And who was the fourth man who that dammed Maple had knocked up during the Grand Magic Games? Hibiki? "In any case, it's not like knowing is going to make the pregnancy any more or less comfortable. Although it does help to explain why your symptoms have been more severe."

"The morning sickness?"

And the mood swings that swung towards depression more often than not, but from personal experience with pregnancy induced mood swings, Rogue knew better than to bring those up. "And we'll be better prepared for when they arrive."

Sting grunted an affirmation, which was the most positive response Rogue had drawn out of him since they made it home. He'd already thrown a fit over Erza taking Alex, crying and screaming not over how it wasn't fair that she took their girl, but that Erza should keep her forever because he wasn't capable of _anything_ and they were just going to get Alex killed if they kept her. Then he'd started sobbing about how their twins were doomed too. In fact, those first two babies he lost must have chosen not to be born because they_ knew_ they were better off dead than with him. This had been the most frustrating part of the afternoon, with Rogue unable to talk him down from this notion, even when he explained pre-natal development and how the two miscarried babies hadn't developed a brain to even consider that yet.

Finally, Sting had settled down on the couch and began moaning about how miserable it was to be with twins. Rogue had hated being pregnant himself, particularly once he got so large that Alex got in the way of most anything he tried to do. Neither of them would have been in danger of being hit by a magic four-wheeler if he'd been able to get himself out of the way, for one.

But he hadn't been injured while he was pregnant with her. And he hadn't been pregnant with two of her. The only thing Sting really had over him was that he didn't have to deal with any drama over who he loved more, which wasn't much, really. If anything, having both Sting and Natsu there to help him with everything had been a blessing. Not the emotional turmoil side of it, but it had been a near impossibility for Rogue not to have someone to turn too when he needed support. Had Natsu gone missing on a job back then, Sting would have jumped all over the chance to take care of him.

Sting would have tried to lighten the mood, too. He was supposed to be the sun, bright and brilliant, that Rogue could follow. A light that Rogue had never thought would go out…

And here he was about to give out completely.

Rogue himself was trying not to do too much. He didn't want Erza to storm back in and snap at him for not resting while sick, but like hell he could expect Sting to manage things.

He rose from his chair at the kitchen table, coming around to sit on the floor in front of Sting, and gave his best reassuring smile.

"Do you want to come up with matching names for them? If you still like Mint, then how about Spearmint and Peppermint?"

It was the worst suggestion he'd ever made, and the hope had been that Sting would laugh at it, but the blond didn't respond at all.

"Well, what would you name them?"

Nothing.

"Can you tell where they are? Whenever I went to see the doctor with Alex, they'd poke at me and tell me if her head was beneath their hand, or if it was her leg. Once she got bigger, I could tell for myself more."

"Oh. Right. They get bigger. I'm going to pop, aren't I?"

"Probably not. You don't look like you're carrying twins." A large baby, maybe, but not twins. "Besides, plenty of people have survived giving birth to triplets."

"Yeah, but they were _women._"

"I survived."

"You only had one. And Jellal almost died from one."

True. Rogue hadn't been there when Jellal was in labor. No one had for a good long while, which was part of why it went so horribly. That virtually no one _knew_ Jellal was living with Erza at the time didn't help. But from what he'd heard afterward, it hadn't been pretty. Still, he couldn't concede a point to Sting.

"Well, if you paid more attention to Erza whenever she brought Kiseki over, you'd know that Jellal almost dying is a regular occurrence."

"That's nice."

"Not really, but that's not the point. Sting, this is going to work out?"

"When does it start working?" Sting demanded. "This has been one disaster after another from the start! You were right! You were right about this whole thing being a terrible idea and I never should have gone through with it! I just want it _over with_!"

Rogue reached out and stroked Sting's arm, saying as gently as he could, "You're past half-way. It won't be much longer, and I know it doesn't always feel great, but it's not—"

"If you say 'that bad' I will _throttle_ you, Rogue! It's _the worst_. I can't do _anything_. I can't take care of Alex anymore. I can't help you when you're in trouble. I can't even do the god dammed dishes for you. I'm _worthless_."

"You're not—"

"_Liar!_" Sting shrieked.

Rogue froze, unsure what to do here. This was worse than trying to comfort Sting after Minerva stole Lector. Worse than when he'd thrown a mood swing driven fit and pushed Natsu around? Maybe. From Rogue's perspective, most of those were still justified.

"Sting. I don't think you're—"

"_Stop it!_ Just… just…" Sting screamed, grabbing the nearest throw pillow and covering his face to muffle the noise, and to try and keep Rogue from seeing that he'd started to cry.

At first Rogue sat there, waiting for Sting to stop so he could attempt to reason again. But even after the screaming finally ended, Sting didn't lift the pillow. And against Rogue's ears, it wasn't enough to mute the sounds of his sobs. Unsure what else to do, Rogue leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Sting, and said nothing.


	14. Chapter 14

"Seven weeks to go."

There was no response, but by this point Rogue was used to that. This was, apparently, not the first time Sting shut down completely. He was still furious with Lucy for not telling him that _this_ was how Sting responded to his going missing previously. He'd seen Sting upset before, but never had he known his lover to so completely shut down. It seemed unnatural, to see someone who was usually so bright and energetic act so… dead inside.

Sting did what he was told, to an extent. He ignored Rogue's suggestions to smile, but if you grabbed his arms and pulled, he wouldn't resist, so he could be made to sit up in bed that way. Then he wouldn't fight you if you put his braces on for him and lifted him into his wheelchair. He would still whimper when you pushed it—retreating within himself didn't stop Sting from experiencing any motion sickness—so Rogue didn't usually wheel him anywhere. Once he had Sting sitting up, he would pull up a chair next to him and get him to eat. Some days, Sting could be persuaded to hold the plate and fork and eat for himself. Others, Rogue had to place the food in Sting's mouth.

At no point did Lector ever leave Sting's side. Rogue tried to keep him company during the morning and evening, but he had to leave in the middle of the day to help at the guild, where he fielded questions about Sting's condition. Sometimes Frosch followed him to work. Other times he asked her to stay with Sting.

It wasn't an ideal situation to leave Alex in, and she was living with Erza indefinitely, with both her and Kiseki going to Bisca and Alzack when Erza needed to work. Eerza brought both children with her to guild whenever she wasn't working, and Alex was allowed to toddle into the back rooms with Rogue and watch her mommy work. Sometimes, for the sake of doing something with her, Rogue would give her a few papers or a cup of tea that someone had ordered, and let her help him carry things here and there. The rest of the guild found it precious when Alex helped bring their orders. Rogue found it frustrating that he couldn't spend time with her outside of work. Sting, who hardly saw her at all, had nothing to say for the situation.

Rogue kept suggesting baby names too, sometimes throwing in absolutely terrible ones just to see if Sting might call him on it. James and John. Jeremiah and Jebediah. Aaron and Erin. Elias and Elliot. Conner and Collin. He started looking for themes at some point. Aki and Haru. Hikari and Yami. The only one that got a reaction was Yue and Sol.

"Maybe," Sting mumbled.

"You like that one?"

No response.

"Well, that's what I'm going to call them, then."

And he did keep calling them that. As the twins grew Rogue was able to determine where their heads were—asking Sting for permission to feel his stomach first and taking silence as a yes—and decided that the one who was lower down could be Yue, so whichever of the twins had that name could be born first.

There was probably going to be a squabble about that later on, when Sting was back to his old self and paid enough attention to realize that Rogue had decided to make the twin who's name theme more referenced him the older one. Rogue maintained hope that Sting _would_ be back to his old self, and longingly looked forward to that squabble.

For as completely as Sting had shut everything out the past few weeks, Rogue dreaded that the return of the Sting he knew was still weeks away. That _his_ Sting wouldn't be there again until after the twins were born and Alex was home and someone could heal the injuries that had turned the whole pregnancy from tolerable to miserable.

So it came as a heart stopping surprise to him when he came back from purchasing groceries one evening and Sting was gone.

He didn't notice immediately. Sting's scent was everywhere in the apartment, and he'd been so quiet as of late that Rogue made nothing of the silence. Even Lector had long ago given up on trying to coax Sting into conversation, after all. He turned on a burner and started preparing a curry for dinner before deciding to go and warn Sting that tonight was going to be a night to eat at the table, and thus a night to be pushed in the wheelchair.

For a second, he didn't believe it when he stepped into the bedroom and saw neither the chair nor Sting. Then he momentarily forgot that Sting was still technically capable of getting up and moving himself around and worried that his poor, pregnant love had been abducted. Finally, when he noticed that Lector was gone as well and there was no note urging him to hurry and help, he concluded that, most likely, Sting had defied his expectations and decided to get up and go somewhere.

When the initial shock at this wore off, Rogue abandoned the dinner and headed out, calling for Sting's name. The was, obnoxiously, still no response. He ended up going by scent, and tracked Sting a mere block and a half in the opposite direction of the guild.

Sting was backed up against a wall when Rogue found him, sitting with his face buried in his hands and ignoring the occasional concerned question of a passer-byer. Lector, who sat of Sting's shoulder, deflected those questions with excuses of Sting being tired.

Rogue waited a moment to see if Sting might notice him, and didn't take it personally when Sting didn't react to his hovering nearby. After all, Sting hadn't reacted to him for almost a month now. He gave it a minute, then sat down on the street in front of him and spoke.

"Hey."

Slowly, Sting lifted his face from his hands. His eyes were red and puffy, and watered when he registered what he was looking at.

"How are you feeling?"

"I hate this," Sting croaked.

"I've noticed." He'd also noticed that telling Sting it wasn't the worst thing ever wasn't productive, so Rogue instead followed that with, "Is there anything I can do?"

"Alex," Sting said. "I want to see Alex. Is she still with Erza?"

Rogue nodded. "It's getting late for her. She'll be in bed by the time we get there. I can ask Erza to bring her over tomorrow, or you could meet her in the guild."

Sting didn't respond, but he at least averted his gaze, which was some manner of indication that he'd heard Rogue.

"Were you on your way to see her?"

Sting nodded.

"Ah. I'm jealous. But it's good that someone was able to get you moving. We can see her tomorrow, Sting. I promise."

Sting nodded again, eyes dropping too his lap. "I hate this."

"I know."

"I can't do anything. I can't protect you. I can't look after Alex. I'm such a load I'm even keeping _you_ from looking after Alex."

He wouldn't, if he could get out of bed and eat and wash himself without Rogue having to physically drag him through the motions, but Rogue had enough sense not to say that. Or at least not to be so blunt about it.

"You've had it rough. Don't beat yourself up over it. At my worst I didn't feel like I had it in me to look after Frosch without support. Things will pick up. That you came here to look for her is enough to make me think she might be back before her brothers are born."

Sting didn't look up. Didn't even try to fake a smile. Rogue hoped he didn't work out that 'at my worst' was immediately after Sting had kicked him out when he learned he was pregnant. He'd tried his hardest to be vague for that one.

Lector gestured, silently, for them to go home. Rogue nodded, but before doing anything else, leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Sting.

Sting stiffened, waiting for Rogue to say something else. More false comfort and platitudes. Rogue, however, said nothing, offering only his embrace for comfort.

After a full minute passed and Rogue hadn't let go, Sting found himself relaxing into his lover's arms and, eventually, wrapping his own around Rogue.

"I'm sorry," Sting mumbled.

Still holding him tight, Rogue said, "You shouldn't be."


	15. Chapter 15

The next day Rogue went ahead on his own to the guild, just to check, and found that Erza was gone for the day. Jellal was passing through a nearby town, and rather than leave Alex with Bisca, she'd elected not to split the kids up and bring their daughter along to visit Kiseki's mommy. He was afraid to tell Sting this, or rather, afraid to give Sting cause for another breakdown. Much to his relief, Sting took the news in stride. Sure, he was far from happy to learn that he still couldn't see Alex, but Erza taking Alex elsewhere for the day was on her. If it wasn't Sting screwing up again, at least in Sting's mind, then Sting didn't mind.

With Sting speaking again, Rogue seized the day as an opportunity for the two of them to be a normal couple. Sting scoffed at the idea, claiming that normal couples didn't involve heavily pregnant men in wheelchairs.

"Minus the wheelchair, that didn't stop you from dragging me to a couple's vacation in another country," Rogue pointed out.

"Technically, we went together 'as friends' that time," Sting argued. "You were still dating Natsu. And you weren't trapped in a torture chair."

"Sting, this may come as a shock to you, but plenty of people who are stuck in a wheelchair _for life_ go on to do normal couple things. You are only in a wheelchair for a few more months. I think we can handle a nice dinner."

Sting didn't seem convinced, but while had needed to be reminded to get out of bed, he had gotten himself breakfast without prompting or spoon feeding. Granted, breakfast had been a can of tuna that Sting didn't even bother to dump onto a plate before eating, but eating was eating. Rogue had high hopes that, should a nice dinner be presented to him, he would eat that too. At Sting's current energy level, the candle lighting he had planned wouldn't be worth the energy to object to.

Some little part of Rogue hoped that Sting might _like_ the lighting, but he didn't have high hopes for anything beyond apathy.

Conversation was sparse, but Sting responded to one topic in ten, which was a massive improvement from the day before, and he could continue a subject for several minutes at a time before losing interest.

What held the bulk of his interest, much to Rogue's surprise, was Frosch. In the absence of Alex, and perhaps out of guilt for not looking after her during his first meltdown while Rogue was missing, Sting had taken to doting on Rogue's cat. It freed Rogue up more to focus on dinner, and Frosch adored being adored.

Rogue broke up the two's play when dinner was ready, asking the exceed to eat on the couch while he and Sting ate at the dinner table. Seeing Rogue flick the lights off so only candles lit the room, neither Frosch nor Lector protested.

It was Sting who took issue with the setup, taking one look at the table and telling Rogue, "If you're setting the mood up for anything else tonight, I don't think I'm up for it."

"We can stick to pre-Alex couple things."

Ignoring the cats sitting across the room, Sting said, "You say that like having sex occurred post-Alex."

"Well, attempting sex is a post-Ales thing, so we don't have to try that."

That made Sting crack his first grin of the day, and Rogue's heart fluttered. It felt like it had been decades since he saw that look. But then the look was gone. Sting's eyes were downcast again, and try as he might, Rogue couldn't come up with anything else to get him smiling.

-o-

Erza never spent more than a day with Jellal, so neither Sting nor Rogue felt there was a need to check again the next morning. For the sake of getting Sting moving on his own, Rogue told him that they could leave faster if Sting dressed himself while Rogue scrambled eggs. Sting then dressed himself for the first time in weeks, and to keep him from eating a can of whatever he thought would take the least prep again, Rogue insisted he take the larger portion of eggs before they headed out, cats in tow.

Despite Sting's low energy, they had woken up early, and were among the first to the guild. Rogue wheeled Sting up to a table near where Makarov had positioned himself in case Sting wanted to talk to anyone, kissed him, and slipped into the kitchen to help with breakfast prep for everyone else. The first moment he had free, he brought a plat of bacon and a glass of tea out for Sting, insisting that he have more than just the egg. He was eating for three, after all.

Sting gave Rogue, who had loathed being told he was eating for two, a much suffered look, but bacon smelled good. Even in his funk, Sting wasn't immune to bacon. Rogue saw him take a bite on his way back to the kitchen.

He tried to peak out frequently, making sure that Sting was responding to Makarov's occasional attempts at conversation, and that no one else trickling in gave him too hard a time for disappearing for a month. Not that Rogue thought that anyone from Fairy Tail was apt to _bully_ Sting. But he wouldn't be shocked if, say, Gajeel asked him something insensitive without thinking.

It was a relief when Rogue smelled Natsu coming and poked his head out to see him. The door opened for Natsu not long after Rogue looked out of the kitchen, and although Rogue was ready to wave hello to him—something he hadn't done since they were still together—Natsu didn't even glance his way. The roset's eyes went straight to Sting, and he made a b-line for him. Rogue could hear Natsu talking about how Erza took too long fussing with what to dress Kiseki in, so she always ran late to everything, but if Sting was there to see Alex than it wouldn't be much longer.

Smiling, Rogue turned his focus to work. Natsu might have been the last person in the world he would leave a small child alone with, but Rogue knew how well he could take care of a friend. Sting was in good hands.

-o-

Sting didn't feel particularly hungry, something he attributed to two little squirts growing in his abdomen and leaving no room for his stomach, but Rogue insisted he eat. Since he didn't seem to be able to take care of anyone, himself included, Rogue probably knew what he was saying. Sting picked at his plate, summoning the effort to take a bite on occasion, and forced a smile whenever anyone walked in and told him they were glad to see he was out and about again.

Rogue hadn't told any of them about his breakdown, he quickly gathered. The bulk of the guild was under the impression that he had merely been taking it easy after his last hospitalization. Sting would have argued that his hiding in the apartment for three whole weeks was unusual for him, except he'd done pretty much that when he first became pregnant as well.

Why couldn't one of those other pregnancies have taken first? Those hadn't been twins. At least, they probably wouldn't have been. He could have been in significantly less discomfort waiting to give birth if things had worked out when he was only pregnant with one. Maybe enough less to not become completely ineffectual.

Sulking, Sting didn't notice Natsu approach him until the fire slayer dropped onto his bench and slung an arm around his shoulder.

"Hey! I was beginning to worry about you."

Sting gave Natsu a much suffered look and said, "I'm beginning to get real sick of people doing that."

"That's not a friendly greeting."

"We're not friends?"

"Well we're not strangers. You wouldn't let a stranger cook all your lunches and play with your daughter, would you?"

A stranger cooked his lunch every time he went to a restaurant, but that wasn't the point. "We're not strangers either, Natsu."

"Then why aren't you acting more familiar?"

Because he didn't feel like it, but it was too early in the day for Sting to say something so immature, so rather than dignify Natsu's question with a response, he stabbed his fork into a piece of bacon and shoved it into his mouth. He regretted this almost immediately. He'd already eaten way more than he'd wanted to, and with his appetite so thoroughly dead, the fatty strip of meat felt gross on his tongue.

Natsu waited for him to choke the food down before saying, "You're having twins, right? Twin boys?"

This time the look Sting gave him wasn't much suffered so much as it was pure suffering.

"Aw, don't look so upset. You love kids."

"Not _in_ me."

"Well, they won't be there forever. And now if you feel like three's a good number, you don't have to spend years convincing Rogue of it. Do you have any names picked out yet? I want to name one. I didn't get any say in naming Alex."

"Well, Alex kind of isn't your kid, so there's a reason for that."

Natsu paused, looking briefly as if he'd been smacked, then said, "Well, I still should have been in on the decision, because she was _going_ to be mine at the time."

"Are you trying to piss me off?"

"If I do, will you stop speaking in monotone?"

"_Natsu_."

"We could name one Cole."

"They have names, Natsu. Now if you're only here to antagonize me—"

"What did you name them?"

"Nothing! Leave me alone!"

"Those are _horrible_ names!"

"Yue and Sol, alright! Rogue came up with them. Let me eat in peace!"

"But… you aren't hungry."

Sting looked away, unsure how to debate that one.

At first, Natsu tolerated the silence. It didn't take a genius to see that Sting wasn't in the best mood for conversation. As it dragged on, however, he found himself unable to hold his tongue, and said quietly, "Lucy says that when Rogue was missing, after I left, you shut down. That didn't happen again, did it? Rogue's been dodging questions about you for weeks and saying you don't want anyone visiting."

"I don't."

"Well, since I couldn't come see you, how have you been the past few weeks?"

Sting opened his mouth to try and claim he was fine, but the words didn't come out. He _wasn't_ fine. He wasn't paralyzed by the feeling anymore, but he still felt worthless. He failed to carry a child twice and when a pregnancy finally worked, he failed to keep Rogue safe. He failed to look after their daughter. He failed to take care of Frosch and Lector. He failed so miserably that Frosch and Lector and Rogue couldn't take care of Alex because he took so much of their time. And to Natsu he couldn't say any of it, so he sat there, eyes downcast, mouth open as he choked on words that wouldn't come out.

He shut his eyes, unable to bear Natsu's curious gaze, and wished the whole world would disappear. When he felt Natsu's hand on his shoulder, he was about to scream. Make a scene and demand everyone just _go away_. Maybe even stand despite all of Rogue's instructions to use his chair and run for it. But then Natsu said something that Sting knew meant he couldn't possibly leave.

"I hear Erza coming. Do you want to see Alex?"

Sting's eye snapped open. Alex. Of course he wanted to see her. Each day he didn't get to see his precious little girl was pure misery.

The seconds ticked agonizingly by as he waited for the front door to open, and when it did, Sting had to blink rapidly to keep himself from tearing up when he saw Alex step in.

She had her thumb in her mouth, a habit that he and Rogue had discouraged, but Erza had always allowed Kiseki, and she was dressed like a God dammed strawberry, but whatever vices Erza allowed and no matter how terrible her taste in toddler fashion was, she was as adorable as ever. Without thinking, Sting tried to stand, only remembering why he'd stopped doing this when a sharp pain in his knee made his leg give out beneath him. Falling back to the bench, he watched her helplessly, and Natsu took it upon himself to catch their attention.

"Hey! Erza! Alex! Little Erza! Come here!"

To the best of Sting's knowledge, the nickname was meant to tease Jellal, which was silly. If anything, Jellal thought it was wonderful that Kiseki had his dad's hair. Neither Erza nor Jellal had any baby photos to compare, and both worried about the possibility that Kiseki would look more and more like his criminal mother as he grew up, but in the meantime they were happy to see that the only obvious feature of Jellal's he'd inherited was his eyes. It significantly lowered the chances of anyone realizing Erza had a child with a wanted man.

If Sting _really_ wanted to get on someone's nerves, he could have called Alex 'Little Rogue'. It wasn't like you could tell at a glance that she was anyone _but _Rogue's, for as much as she looked like him. But for all the hatchets Natsu and Sting had tried to bury, that wasn't anything she was likely to be addressed by any time soon. And even if Natsu did call her that, Sting was happy enough to see her squeal when she saw him that he was sure he'd be able to overlook it.

Alex broke away from Erza, scurrying towards him as fast as her little legs would let her.

"Daddy!" she cried. "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!"

"Alex, Alex, Alex!"

His lap being occupied by his stomach, Alex couldn't jump into it, but she did pull herself up onto the bench beside Sting, standing on her toes to throw her arms around his neck and kiss his cheek.

"Daddy, Auntie Erza doesn't know how to play tea party! She puts _gross_ green water in the cups. Tell her to _stop_."

Sting had dreaded that the first thing Alex might tell him was that she missed him, or that she didn't know why she had to stay with someone else and wanted to come home. While he might have liked being missed, the guilt that would have placed no him would be too much. _That_, however, was probably the most perfect opening Alex could have made, and Sting found himself chuckling at it. Realizing that Erza probably included real cake in her tea parties, which Alex didn't ask be stopped at all, only made him burst out in laughter.

"_Noooo_. Daddy, she has to _stop_."

"I'll…" Sting covered his mouth to smother a snort. "I'll talk to her."

Nodding in satisfaction, Alex pointed to his remaining bacon strip. He gave her a thumbs up, and she tried to fit it into her mouth, eventually resigning herself to the fact that her mouth was too small, and eating it in bites.

Seeing Sting smile at his girl, Natsu leaned over and said "Rogue hated being pregnant too, remember? His pregnancy wasn't as hard as yours, but he still hated it. He didn't like that he couldn't safely take any jobs and he was completely embarrassed with everyone looking at his stomach. You know how he is about too much attention. And he hated how reliant he was on others towards the end. He couldn't fight either, remember? An you can see it whenever one of your injuries acts up. You can see how he still feels bad about how you were hurt protecting him back then,

"But if he had the chance to go back in time and change things, you know he wouldn't," Natsu said. Which, given that Rogue was one of the few people they knew to ever earnestly attempt to change the past, and attempt that hadn't involved terminating his pregnancy before his past self even knew he was pregnant, meant something.

Sting, eyes still glued to Alex as she wiped he greasy hands on the strawberry shirt, then tried to fold the clothes over to hide the mark this left, asked, "You're point?"

"I know you're not happy with how things are now, but don't you think it'll be worth it in the end?"


	16. Chapter 16

It would be worth it in the end. He just had to wait it out. Five more weeks of pure misery, and he would be done. Okay, five weeks or impure misery. He still had Rogue's love, no matter how much a screw up he felt like, and even if he couldn't look after Alex, he could see her. Five more weeks, and then he could work on recovering and return to how things were, with the addition of two little boys.

Just five weeks to go. That's what he'd been telling himself. So it came as a shock when, at his final scheduled checkup before his due date, the doctor asked, "Have you considered an early delivery?"

"Early…"

"Given the twins' positions, you should expect to deliver by c-section. Since the odds of a natural birth are already low, it might be in your best interest to schedule one before your expected due date. It's a little early for them still, but by this stage most children can survive outside the womb. Considering your health, it might be for the best to deliver them early. As it is, you've gone longer than we'd like without any corrective surgery, and with a spinal injury…" The doctor shook his head. "We could have you in by the end of the week, if you'd like."

"I…" Sting blinked, trying to process the idea. Be done with his pregnancy in only a few days? But at the risk of Sol and Yue's health…

Could he… could he really do that? He did have his own health to consider, but Sol and Yue…

Rogue placed a hand on Sting's shoulder, jolting him out of his thoughts.

"I hope you aren't asking us to decide that right this minute."

"Of course not. You two can sleep on it, if you'd like. Let us know when you've made your decision."

-o-

The plan was for the two of them to spend the evening discussing their options. They could send Frosch and Lector to the guild to play with Alex, Rogue was going to cook something fast and simple, and they would weigh out all the pros and cons of the situation over dinner. Maybe, if they decided by morning, they could contact the hospital with their answer.

This plan was dashed the second Rogue opened the door, and Alex flew out and jumped on him, wrapping her arms and legs around his knee.

"Surprise, Mommy!"

While Rogue wrestled to get Alex off of him and into his arms, Sting looked past them to the table where he and Rogue had planned to have their serious discussion. Natsu, Erza, Lucy, and, of all people, Jellal sat around it, with Kiseki bouncing up and down in his own mother's lap. To the best of Sting's knowledge, this was Kiseki's first time seeing Jellal in a building, rather than an outlaw camp.

"I'm pretty sure none of you have a spare key. What part of this was supposed to be the surprise? Alex. The break-in, or Blue being within twenty miles of civilization?"

"I usually camp within five, thank you," Jellal said. "And I have a name."

"Your name is Blue," said Sting, who had met Jellal back before Kiseki and Alex were born but not been informed of his identity until the two were a year old, and had thus needed a nickname to describe the only other man he'd known to have been pregnant. Apparently, he was supposed to recognize Jellal from the wanted posters or something. The ones that stopped circulating everywhere back when he was thirteen, when Jellal's prison break became old news. "In any case, how let you in?"

"You guys never think to lock your windows," Natsu told him. "Lucy used to make the same mistake all the time, but she learned."

"I shouldn't have _had_ to learn. I live on the second flood. But you two don't, so it wouldn't be a bad security precaution."

Anyone who really wanted to break in and rob them could easily smash the window, in Sting's figuring, Still, it seemed that locking them would be a good way to keep friends, babysitters, and wanted criminals who were less interested in robbery and more in observing their son's play date out. That accounted for Lucy, Erza, and Jellal. Natsu, in Sting's experience, wasn't above breaking into places by means of smashing windows even when the front door was unlocked with a big sign proclaiming "Open" hanging from it.

"Rogue, can you kick them out?"

Rogue looked up from his struggle with Alex, who had managed to climb up to his waist, to survey the scene. "Natsu, did you make that with ingredients from _our_ kitchen, or did you bring your own?"

"Brought my own. I wasn't sure you had all the right stuff."

Most of the sweets and baked goods Natsu had littered the table with, recalling that food bribes were effective on both of the twin slayers, had been cooked in his own house. Those things which did not need a proper time to cool having been kept warm with magic. Only the blueberry pie, still hot from the oven, had been baked upon reaching the twins' apartment.

Alex, who was now attempting to climb her way up to Rogue's shoulder, was clearly high on sugar. Sting wasn't as familiar with Kiseki and his mannerisms, but from the way the boy squirmed in Jellal's lap, he suspected that their child wasn't the only one who had a weakness for sweets. Erza too seemed more interested in digging away at a cake than she did with whatever intervention the gang had planned. Sting had always figured that Erza was the one who would pass on a sweet to her children. He'd taken that as some kinship he might have with her, as he didn't doubt for one second that Alex's being partial to sweets was in large part thanks to whatever genes she received from him. If Rogue wasn't boot everyone out, and Natsu's food along with them, then he figured he might as well get in on that cake before Erza consumed the entire thing by herself.

Finally prying Alex off of himself, Rogue said, "This must have taken a long time to make. What's the occasion?"

"Baby shower," Lucy told him. "Did you forget?"

Sting looked back at Rogue, who's expression of blank surprise stated that he had.

"Really?" Lucy asked. "We'd planned this for months."

"Things came up," Rogue said, which was a very polite way of saying that there had been a month long stretch where he'd been too busy dealing with Sting's depression to keep track of anything else in his life. "No offense, Jellal, but why is Jellal here?"

"I don't give him my schedule months out," Erza said. "He was nearby and contacted me this morning about a meet up. I told him I had to be here, and that Kiseki was coming with me, since Alex obviously needed to come. He said he thought he could make it."

It wasn't exactly appropriate to crash a near stranger's baby shower just to see your kid, but Sting held his tongue. A few weeks without Alex had been unbearable for him. Jellal saw Kiseki only once every couple months. Besides, Crime Sorciere was an allied guild with Fairy Tail. He ought to know their members better.

Giving Jellal a hesitant smile, Sting wheeled himself over to the table. When Jellal gave a hesitant smile back and politely refrained from snickering at the way the wheelchair in motion made Sting turn green, Sting decided he could likely manage to be more genuinely polite.

"Erza tells me you're expecting twins," Jellal said when Sting reached the table.

"I bet I look like it."

He had a little over a month left. His stomach was large enough that it got in the way of virtually everything.

"You look a little overdue," was the tactful way Jellal chose to phrase it. There was no denying that Sting's stomach took up a considerable amount of space. Not without obviously lying, at least.

Lucy, in a far less tactful way, said, "I'm afraid I'd look like that if I was ever pregnant."

"Then don't get pregnant," Sting told her with a shrug. "You'd do a disservice to the baby to let Natsu be its father anyway."

Jellal, baffled, looked to Erza, who explained all the reasons that Natsu was absolutely forbidden from babysitting Kiseki, and only allowed to watch Alex under Sting or Rogue's supervision. With Lucy occasionally throwing in her own worry some observations and Natsu occasionally protesting one claim or another about his ineptitude for parenting, Sting took the opportunity to slice himself a piece of the freshly baked pie and cram a bite into his mouth.

In retrospect, while the timing was pretty terrible, it was a decent baby shower. He'd heard about Rogue's. A surprise party with all manner of pre-teen sleepover games put on by all the girls in the guild. Compared to that, a gathering of a few friends who bore relevancy to his parenthood—and Jellal—wasn't half bad. The abundance of sweets was also nice, but he wasn't exactly looking forward to any gifts they might have planned to give him.

Rogue pulled up a chair beside Sting, attempting briefly to hold Alex in his lap as well, then giving up and putting her on the floor to run around giggling. Kiseki, seeing his number one playmate's freedom, began fighting to escape Jellal's lap as well.

Sting watched Jellal's initial struggle to keep the usually docile boy under control before relinquishing him to the floor, munching on pie as he did. He'd encountered Jellal once, early on in his pregnancy, and not known who he was or even that he was pregnant until someone mentioned it to him. Neither he nor Rogue had seen him at all during the incident after that. Aside from Erza and possibly Natsu, who knew Jellal well and had a good nose, no one had even known that he was hiding in and around town for most of his pregnancy. The guild's general knowledge of the whole thing came from Erza's retelling of it, and Sting didn't have any firsthand information on how things were for Jellal late term, but...

"Jellal, you were late, weren't you?"

Looking surprised, Jellal asked, "How did you know? We all made it before you got home?"

"No. With Kiseki."

"Oh." Jellal glanced over at the boy. "By about a week, yes. Why?"

Sting hesitated before saying, "My doctor suggested—"

"Hold it." Natsu held a hand up. "Unless someone's dying, no doctor stuff yet. You need to see our gift."

"That's nice, Natsu, but Rogue and I have something kind of—"

"Is someone dying?"

"I am. On the inside."

Rogue smacked Sting in the back of the head. "Don't joke like that. Natsu, Sting and I really do have something important to go over, but we'd be happy to see your surprise."

"So long as you bring it out here," Sting added. The less wheeling himself around he had to do, the better.

The group exchanged uncomfortable looks, and Erza said, "Well, our gift involved some rearranging of rooms. You need to get up for that."

"You can stand," Rogue offered. "I'll help support you, so it won't be as much weight on your leg."

One round of haggling later, Rogue was instead carrying Sting princess style down the hall to look first at Alex's room, then the empty room they had planned to make into the new babies' nursery. Ideally, that would have been taken care of weeks ago, but between dark guild abductions and complete mental breakdowns, the twin slayers just hadn't managed to get around to it.

Alex's crib was gone. At least, that's what they initially thought. It had been replaced with a low sitting bed, pink with a drape over it, and the word _Princess_ inscribed across the headboard. Pink wallpaper with a sparkle pattern had been pasted, and a new little dresser with a mirror sat against her wall. Why their three year old's room was updated for a baby shower, the two couldn't guess. Not until they saw the unfinished nursery.

Which their friends had completely finished for them.

Alex's old crib was there, with a new one placed on the exact opposite end of the room. Some of her old toys had been replaced with cleaner ones, and the diaper changing station had been scrubbed clean—not that it was likely to stay that way for long. Alex's old dresser, which was less a real dresser and more a stack of clear boxes, had been placed by the window and filled with new baby clothes.

"We figured that with all of the… complications, you two would probably prefer to recycle Alex's things, so originally we were going to help you get new furniture for her," Lucy explained. "But then Natsu said you were expecting twins, so we grabbed an extra crib, and someone thought you might not have enough to dress two babies at once."

"You thought right," Rogue admitted. "Thank you. This is… Thank you."

Sting bit his lip to keep from feeling guilty. Funds were something that had slipped his mind as of late, and Rogue tried not to mention any additional stressors to him. How tight a budget had they been working off of?

Seeing the look of guilt on Sting's face, Jellal said, "There was something important you wanted to ask me?"

Both boys jolted, remembering that there was indeed something important they needed to go over.

"It's not anything you need to concern yourself with, really," Rogue insisted.

Taking the not so subtle hint to keep the details between him and Rogue, Sting said, "I just wondered what you thought of having Kiseki so late. And nearly dying in the effort."

Casting Erza a weary glance, Jellal said, "I did _not_ almost die."

"You seemed to think you were dying when I found you bleeding out on the floor."

"Well, you clearly did. I—"

"Jellal." Erza flashed her sweetest smile smiled. "You almost died."

Sting cleared his throat. "Anyway. I wondered what you would have thought of having him earlier."

"Tired of being pregnant?" Jellal asked with a good natured grin. While no one said anything in response to that, the looks of everyone around him, ranging from flat to shocked, declared quite loudly that this was not only common knowledge, but borderline offensive to ask. "W-well I suppose that whatever went wrong for me, if likely would have no matter when Kiseki came. It's possible that his size played a part, but I wouldn't know for sure. I certainly wouldn't have minded if he came on time, but I'm happy he wasn't premature."

"What if you'd known for sure that if he came a few weeks early, it wouldn't have been any harm to you."

"Then I'd still want him to come on time."

"Jellal," Erza muttered, grabbing his sleeve. There was nothing worse, for her, than for Jellal to reference his lack of self-worth so openly.

He ignored her. "I lived, in the end, and even if I hadn't, I'd feel it was worth it. There isn't much I've done in my life that I truly feel proud of, and nothing more I'm prouder of than that I was able to bring Kiseki into the world strong and healthy. I couldn't go to a hospital. If he was born premature and needed anything for it, we might not have been able to get him help fast enough. I'm much happier knowing that it was myself at risk, and not his own health that was jeopardized."

-o-

For the first time in a long time, Sting wasn't sad to think that Alex was staying with Erza indefinitely. They'd returned from inspecting the rooms to find that Alex had crawled on top and was helping herself, tiny fist after fist, to handfuls of cake. Kiseki, in contrast, sat patiently in the chair where Jellal had set him, with the addition of a pink frosting smear across his cheek. Jellal had offered to spend the night and help, although how exactly he'd snuck from their apartment to Erza's, Sting didn't know. Even with him there, however, he didn't envy Erza. One small child pumped full of sugar was already too much for him Rogue, and Lector to handle. Two sounded like a nightmare.

A nightmare he and Rogue would likely spend a fair deal of time living, once the twins were old enough to get into everything.

Their uninvited guests had stayed until it was nearly dinner, when Rogue shoed them out, insisting that he needed to feed Sting something with actual nutritional value, and that they really _did_ have something that needed to be discussed between the two of them alone.

And so Sting found himself and Rogue sitting at the table, all of the sweets that Natsu had brought packed up and tucked away, picking half-heartedly at a skillet cooked hamburger and thinking about how wonderful it would be if there was enough room in his midsection for his stomach to have enough room for his food.

"It's your choice, ultimately," Rogue reminded him. "Whatever you want, I'll be with you for it."

"They're going to cut the twins out of me either way."

"That's what it sounded like."

No way in hell would they let Rogue stay in the operating room, but he could trust that his lover would be there beside him during the recovery. At least so long as Yue and Sol weren't discharged before he was. Which they might not be, if anything went wrong with one or the other of them because they didn't have enough time to develop before being brought into the world.

Sting set his fork down, folding his hands over his stomach and thinking about it. Realistically, it was likely that Yue and Sol would go home before him if he made it to term. They would only need a few days to make sure everything was alright, while he would have longer to recover from surgery. Maybe even multiple surgeries, considering his injuries. But for as long now as he'd been dealing with _that_ while pregnant, surely whatever damage there was had already been done.

Then again, for most of his pregnancy, the twins had been… well… getting larger, but also not as large as they were now. His stomach was heavier now than ever, and he certainly noticed the strain on his back more than he had before, even when he wore his brace. If there was more damage to be done, now seemed like when it would happen.

"Do you think anything might happen that can't be reversed? To my spine, I mean."

"I'm not a doctor. I wouldn't know. Between Porlyusica and Wendy, I don't think there's much that can't be fixed, but it's possible. When you were still in a coma, they were worried the might need to place a metal rod up your spine to keep it straight, and no one's suggested that yet, so whatever the pregnancy is doing, I don't think it's as bad as being hit by an out of control car." Rogue paused. "Of course, they had complete x-rays to look at back then, and your doctor has been hesitant to do anything to thorough while you're pregnant."

"So it could be just as bad and we wouldn't know."

"Well, you're not flopping over when you sit up, brace or no. But we don't know how bad the damage is."

Sting rubbed his stomach, feeling one of the twins heads. Rogue had already picked out which would have what name—something Sting would need to make sure his surgeon knew. He was pretty sure it was Sol that he now felt.

"What about them?"

"Obviously."

"They're only a few weeks from their due date. Babies who are born about this premature live. But it's their lungs that don't finish developing when that happens, isn't it? What if something goes horribly wrong with their lungs because we pulled them out early."

"Could you risk that?"

Thinking of what Jellal said earlier, Sting bit his lip. He wasn't sure he would willingly die just so his children could be healthier, but at the same time…

"It's not like you have to have them operate on you tomorrow," Rogue pointed out. "If your doctor is open with it now and at your due date, I'd imagine any time between then and now would also work."

He wasn't wrong, but Sting shook his head. "What's the point in that? If I wait until they're only one or two weeks premature, they're still coming out before we know for sure they're ready, and I'm still pregnant longer than the doctor things I should be."

Rogue politely refrained from pointing out that he, the one who knew Sting's medical history before they had to track down a doctor who would work with a pregnant male patient, had thought Sting ought not to be pregnant for even a day. Instead, he said, "It's still a risk to all three of you, but it would be less so than working with either extreme."

A sharp metallic taste hit Sting's tongue, and he realized he'd bitten his lip so hard he drew blood.

Less risk than either extreme, but still a risk for everyone. For Sol and Yue, and himself as well. He didn't have Jellal's self-loathing. He didn't ever catch himself thinking he deserved to die, or that giving his life in the service of another was a good thing. He did, however, feel a tremendous amount of guilt as of late. Not enough to make him suicidal, as he'd heard Erza confess that she sometimes worried Jellal might be. Enough to paralyze him for weeks on end, though. The guilt over all the ways he failed everyone he'd loved since becoming pregnant was overwhelming.

For as awful as he'd feel if he spent the rest of his life with some disability burdening Rogue, or preventing him giving Alex all the care she needed, he imagined it would be nothing compared to the guilt he'd feel if Yue and Sol were endangered because he put himself first.

He'd already failed everyone else since becoming pregnant with the twins. And he'd failed the two children before that who he hadn't been able to keep alive long enough to give birth to. If he failed Sol and Yue to, then he would never feel like he was anything more than worthless.

"It's supposed to be thirty-eight weeks before the baby is considered on time?" Sting asked.

"Yes. I don't think the doctor will let you go past that point."

"That's only three weeks away," Sting said. "I don't think they can do too much more damage to me in that time. And the younger kids are, the faster their development. Three weeks would mean a lot for them. I can hold out that long."

-x-

**STA****:** Of all the things that I never thought would happen in this series when I first started Cue The Storm, Rogue and Jellal sharing a page is literally the number one thing. I was more open to killing characters off than I was this, and yet it happened. It just... happened. Like, I was naming off everyone sitting around the table, and Jellal's name just came up. And that was it. They were sharing a page.

I mean, everyone remembers that time Rogue was nearly hit by a demolition derby truck, right? If you had to ask me "which is more likely, Rogue having been hit by that truck and dying on impact, or Rogue and Jellal sharing a page?" I'd have said the death on impact.


	17. Chapter 17

The doctor practically begged Sting to reconsider, but he stuck to his claim. Three weeks. Yue and Sol would stay right where they were for three weeks, and no one was going to make them come out before then.

In the years to come, they would laugh at the fact that Sting's assertion only covered outsiders forcing the twins out. That they might decide to come early on their own was a possibility that had crossed neither Sting nor Rogue's mind.

So familiar was Sting with physical discomfort that he didn't pay the contractions heed initially. He still had another week, after all. And his back hurt more than the occasional cramping in his stomach anyway.

Actually, his back hurt a lot. The twins were _big_. Their weight was driving him nuts, and even if he hadn't expected to have his wish granted, he was certainly wishing they would hurry up and get out of him. In fact, he spent the whole morning complaining about how sick he was of being pregnant, and worrying about how it might be effecting his back. Rogue even left to ask Porlyusica about how extensive of damage she could repair, just to shut him up.

When it finally dawned on Sting that he was in labor, his reaction was to get up, get himself a glass of water, then sit on the couch and wait for Rogue's return. His contractions were still far apart, and Rogue wouldn't be gone more than an hour.

He'd been there when Rogue went into labor, and for as absolutely panicked as Rogue was, Sting had found the whole affair surprisingly dull. They'd made it to the hospital without incident and he spent the next sixteen hours killing time on his own while waiting for Alex's arrival. Rogue, stressed and in pain, hadn't been in the mood for small talk and Sting, still bandaged up like a mummy after his car accident at that point, hadn't been in a position to offer much physical comfort. Rogue hadn't wanted him too close either, lest he somehow get hurt. Not that this concern had stopped Rogue from threatening all manner of bodily harm when the contractions grew worse.

Of course, there was also _Jellal's_ labor. The one where he almost bled to death while trapped at home alone. But Sting wasn't alone. Frosch had left with Rogue, but if anything went horribly wrong while he waited for Rogue's return, Lector could help him to the hospital.

-o-

While Sting sat and home calmly making plans for every worst case scenario, Rogue shifted impatiently from one for to the other waiting on Porlyusica. Sting had been so miserable in his physical discomfort as of late that Rogue couldn't bear not to be there to help him. If one of them didn't need to earn enough to pay for rent and groceries, he would have stopped going to the guild altogether in order to stay by Sting's side as much as possible.

Porlyusica, seeing Rogue's agitation, made a point of going slower. After all, Rogue was the one who came to _her_, asking about back injuries and making her stop what she was doing to give her opinion on how much damage the pregnancy might be doing to Sting. If he didn't want to actually sit and listen to her, then he shouldn't have come in the first place.

The worst part of it, to Rogue, was that he didn't even seem to be learning anything worthwhile from her talk. She didn't _think_ that Sting's injuries were likely to be permanent, based on how long they'd given him no trouble, but then without seeing him she couldn't tell.

Finally, when he could take it no longer, Rogue stood and told the woman, "Thank you for your time. I'll be sure to bring Sting around when he's up for the trip, so you can…" He stopped himself from saying 'so you can know what you're talking about.' "So you can better assess the situation."

"I'm not done."

"I really need to get back to him. Sorry. And thank you again."

"I said I'm not done you ungrateful brat!" Porlyusica yelled, but Rogue was already running as fast as he could back towards town, and only waved in response.

They would probably need to have an x-ray taken at the hospital after all. In the meantime, at least he could tell Sting that it wasn't a sure thing that he'd done any permanent damage.

Rogue hurried home with thoughts of how to comfort Sting at the front of his mind. It hurt to see Sting in pain or despair, and it hurt even worse to be unable to do anything for him. He might not be able to alleviate any of Sting's pain, but at least he could offer emotional support.

Assurance that things weren't definitely ruined and that they could start his treatment in a few weeks was on the tip of Rogue's lips when he opened the front door of their apartment, but seeing Sting's empty wheelchair sitting by the door, he froze.

"Sting?"

"Over here."

Rogue breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing they needed was for Sting to try and get up and hurt himself worse. "You scared me."

"Hm."

That… was an uncharacteristically dull response. Ever since Sting started talking again, he'd been more talkative than _that_. Rogue stepped over to the couch to see Sting, stretched out on his side, face scrunched in pain.

"Are you okay?"

Sting glanced at him, but didn't respond. It was Lector who spoke up to say "He's been lying their rubbing his stomach for an hour."

He wasn't rubbing his stomach now. Instead, one hand clenched the fabric that stretched tight around his belly.

"That's a long time for Sting to sit in one place," Rogue said, trying to see if it might get a chuckle out of Sting. It didn't. It should have, and Rogue could think of a few reasons why it might not have, but those were silly. They still had a week before Sting was scheduled for his c-section.

With a gasp, Sting relaxed. The tension in his face eased, and his grip slackened. Finally looking Rogue's way, he offered a weak smile.

"Is anything wrong?" Rogue asked.

"Technically no. But I think it's time."

"…Time?"

"Yeah."

Deep down, he knew the answer, but Rogue's mind threw the breaks on and wouldn't let him think of it, so instead he asked, "What do you mean? Time for what?"

Sting huffed. "Just get me to the hospital."

"Right! Hospital." Rogue spun around and grabbed the wheelchair, swallowed nervously, and looked back to Sting. "You're really sure it's time?"

"Contractions are about twenty minutes apart."

"Oh. You're timing it… That's good."

Picking up on the odd note in Rogue's voice, Sting asked, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah. Fine. You're the one in labor. Are you alright?"

Rogue was always paler than Sting, but he looked even paler than normal. Sting refrained from pointing that out as he climbed into his chair and resigned himself to a nauseating trip to the hospital. Somehow, he'd figured their positions would have been _fully_ reversed. After all, he was now the one about to give birth while Rogue had to get him to the hospital. It seemed, however, that he was still the one who found the whole thing dull while Rogue tried his best to keep calm.

Of course, it was also on Rogue both time to get the two of them to the hospital, but Sting suspected it had less to do with transport and more to do with the giving birth thing.

"I can ask Lector to take me," Sting offered.

"N-no. Just… I think I remember the way to the hospital."

Sting sure as hell hoped Rogue did.

-o-

Luckily for Sting, _he_ remembered the way to the hospital, and corrected Rogue on the proper direction twice. By the time they arrived, Rogue's anxiety had begun to rub off onto Sting, if only because, for the first time since he became pregnant, Sting wasn't certain of Rogue's reliability. In fact, he was completely confident that he would have to take charge in all matters concerning his labor.

Given how terribly he'd done of doing anything himself in the past few months, that thought was nothing short of terrifying.

Rogue eventually got him to the front desk of the hospital, where Sting ignored the receptionist's sly grin as he explained the situation. This was the same hospital that Rogue had been treated at while expecting Alex, so a pregnant man ought not to have looked _as_ unusual too them, but he'd become accustomed to the occasional employee who treated his condition like a novelty.

Okay. Maybe it _was_ still unusual, but he was in labor and Rogue was struggling to recall their doctor's name, so Sting didn't have much time to deal with an employee acting unprofessional.

Much to his relief, someone was summoned to wheel him to the delivery ward. He'd worried that Rogue might take him to the wrong unit by mistake.

When they arrived, however, a new dilemma presented itself. For as much as Sting wanted Rogue not to try and take charge of the situation, he still wanted Rogue to _be there_. As such, it came as a painful shock, while the surgeon was summoned, when one of the nurses mentioned to them, "No guests in the operating room."

Rogue went rigid, hand tightening so protectively over Sting's shoulder that the pain from the grip eclipsed that of his contraction. After everything that had gone wrong with the pregnancy, after everything that had gone wrong with Sting when everything went wrong, the idea of leaving him alone with strangers was unbearable.

"Rogue has to be there," Sting said.

"I'm really sorry, but that's against hospital policy," the nurse replied. "We had an accident with an operation when family was let into the room. Most visitors aren't trained in sterile procedures. I'm sure you'd love to have your… I'm sorry. Which of you is the husband?"

"Both," Rogue said absentmindedly before remembering: "Oh. Wait. We're not married."

The nurse cleared her throat. "Well, I'm sure you'd love to have your… er… fiancée in the room with you, but trust me, you'd like it even more if we avoided any potentially fatal surgical infections."

"But it's only potentially fatal," Sting argued. "I'll die for sure if Rogue isn't there."

Humoring him, the nurse asked, "How so, Mr. Eucliffe?"

"Um… Heatbreak?"

"You have…" she checked the chart, "a beautiful little… Oh. Two boys? Really? You have two beautiful little boys about to come out into the world. That isn't enough to fill your heart with joy?"

"If it breaks, all the joy's going to leak out."

The nurse laughed, gave him a cheerful pat on the shoulder, and said, "Your fiancée will be here for you after the operation is finished. You relax now. The doctor will be ready for you soon."

With that she left, leaving Sting and Rogue to stare at one another, tense, as they both tried to process that they couldn't be together when the twins were delivered.

"I _need_ you there."

"We'll work this out," Rogue promised. "Maybe the doctor… no. If it's a hospital wide policy, then would he have the authority to waive it? Finding someone who could… we would have to ask them to stall the operation to give us time for that."

Seconds before Sting could say that was fine, a contraction hit. Feeling the muscles in his abdomen tighten painfully, he hissed and bent forward, clutching at his stomach.

Rogue, having gone through labor himself and knowing how horrible contractions were, waited for Sting's to end before expecting a response.

"Shit. No stalling. How long before the doctor's ready?"

"I don't know. Not long enough to find a way to get me in."

"You couldn't sneak in ahead of time?" Sting asked. "Sink into a shadow in the corner of the room, or something."

"If they're already setting up, then I don't know for sure if… wait. Sting, that's brilliant!" Rogue gave his lover a hug, one hand pressed firmly on Sting's back, the other on the back of the wheelchair. "If anyone asks, I went to… I don't know. I went to get something from a vending machine."

There was one right beside them, which Sting took as another sign that Rogue was still a little out of it, but it did seem that Rogue had managed to claim back a _little_ mental alertness in the shock of hearing they might be separated. Activating his magic, Rogue melded into Rogue's shadow, and was hidden from sight.

They would hardly be able to get closer, and no one would know to chase Rogue out like that.

Knowing Rogue was there, even knowing that he had managed to stay more level-headed than Rogue for once, didn't keep Sting any calmer when the nurse returned to wheel him to his surgery.

-o-

If anyone asked Sting to recount his delivery, he wouldn't be able to. The entire experience was surreal. Everything from when they wheeled him into the room and helped him onto the operating table he knew for sure had happened, but from the moment they'd given him the injection that numbed him, it felt as if he wasn't even there.

It wasn't that the drug did too good a job of dulling his senses. Rather, the fact that he could look down and see the surgeon carefully cut him open made the whole thing feel unreal. Like it wasn't his own midsection they were about to pull a baby out of.

Then it hit him—really hit him—that someone was about to pull two babies out of his midsection.

His breath became short, and the nurses kept telling him things to calm him down, but whatever they said, it didn't quite reach him. It wasn't until he felt the pressure of Rogue's hand, reaching from the shadows to rest reassuringly on the back of Sting's shoulder, that he managed to reign himself in.

People had babies pulled out of them all the time. Rogue had a baby in his that a doctor helped get out, and now Rogue was there with him and it would be okay. He just needed to keep calm and let the doctor do his job.

That didn't stop him from passing out when he saw the doctor reach into the surgical cut and pull out the first head, but it kept him from hyperventilating up until that point.


	18. Chapter 18

A shrill scream woke both of them. Rogue more so, because Sting yanked his pillow out from under him to cover his ears.

"No," Rogue said, grabbing the pillow back. "Your turn."

"It's been my turn all night."

"It was my turn all month."

"I was in the hospital!"

"And I was at home juggling three small children who can't wake up and cry in sync."

Groaning, Sting sat up and listened to the crying child a few seconds. "It's Yue this time."

He had been home for only two days, and somehow he could already tell whose shriek was whose. Rogue, who couldn't even catch a difference in the sounds, and he'd been looking after the twins since their birth.

"C'mon, Rogue. It's Yue," Sting repeated. "Yue's yours."

Rogue refrained from smacking Sting just long enough to get the pillow comfortably beneath his head. "_Both_ of them are _ours_. We are _not_ assigning twins to individual parents."

"Okay. Then how about we give it five minutes?"

"Sting."

"It would take me three to feed her. You know Sol will wake up the second I've got her back in bed. And Sol's going to wake Alex."

"_Sting_."

"Fine." Lector rolled off the bed. "_I'll_ feed the baby."

"Fro can help too!"

"I'm getting up!" Sting cried, leaping out of bed and bolting down the hall before Frosch had the chance to try and help.

Rogue regarded the scene with almost enough interest to open his eyes all the way to observe it. Almost. He made a mental note of Sting's reaction to Frosch, got himself comfortable in bed, and shut his eyes. Training Frosch to always volunteer during night could wait until later.

-o-

Despite Sting's grumbling that getting up at all hours meant he had it worse, neither of the twin slayers felt well rested come morning.

They woke at the same time, again because one of the twins required attention. The sun was up this time, so Rogue accepted without argument that it was finally his turn, forced himself to sit up, and promptly caught his foot on the sheets and fell out of bed. The resulting crash was enough to draw Sting out of bed as well.

"I miss being pregnant."

"_Seriously_?"

"There was something nice about fretting over how I couldn't help. I didn't realize how useless you were."

"Useless my ass. Someone had to keep you functional."

Sting grinned and stuck his tongue out, then ducked from a swipe Rogue took at him before bolting out of the room.

Rogue made a show of cursing as he untangled himself from the sheets and picked himself up off the floor, but had Sting stayed in the room, he'd have seen that Rogue was grinning from ear to ear. It was good to have the old Sting back.

After extracting himself from the bed, Rogue found Sting in the twin's room, rocking Sol while watching Yue, who was bound to wake up any second.

Both twins, much to Sting's chagrin, still looked more like Rogue. Unlike Alex, at least, they had Sting's eye shape. Yue even had the right eye color. Neither were blond, and the one blond in the family had flipped his hospital table upon being informed that, due to the nature of dominant and recessive genes, they would likely never have a blond child, no matter how many times they tried.

Sting had even insisted, when both newborns were brought to his room for the first time, that they switch the names before the hospital finalized the paperwork. If Yue was named for his daddy and Sol for mommy, then it made sense that Sol be the one who looked more like mommy. Rogue, frazzled from having two nerborns, a toddler, Frosch, and a hospitalized lover to look after—even with Lector's help—told Sting that informing the nurses of his change was _his_ job.

Rogue had known at the time that Sting would never remember anything that had to do with paperwork for more than three minutes. He hoped Sting never found out that this was the real reason he'd refused to personally see to it that they swap names and make the younger twin Yue.

"How are they?" Rogue asked

"Normal. I think. Did he wake Alex up?"

They both paused, listening for any noise from the adjacent room. Silence.

"Can you handle both of them?" Rogue asked. "I'll see if I can have breakfast made before all three are up."

"I can manage, but sooner or later I think you're going to have to make the switch to cereal."

Rogue, who had nothing good to say about dry, bland flakes and spheres that turned soggy when added to a bowl of milk, made a face at the thought, and went to the kitchen to continue living in denial of the fact that between three young children, the two of them didn't really have time for lengthy meal preparation.

Sting half suspected that Rogue exaggerated how much he hated cooking.

While Rogue was in the kitchen, Yue stirred. Sting scooped her up in his spare arm and by the time he was awake, he was rocking both twins. Conscious of the fact that both had gone several hours without food, Sting continued rocking them as subtly as he could while he made his way to the kitchen.

To his relief, Rogue had thought to prepare baby formula on top of scrambling eggs, and there was something to feed the twins with all read for Sting to grab.

"Alex won't eat that," he mentioned as he set both children on the counter and grabbed both baby bottles.

"There are muffins in the fridge. Alex gets one if she eats her eggs."

"Just give her the muffin."

"In the private of our own home, she can throw as many fits as she wants, but I'm not giving in."

Which meant Rogue was willing to do things her way if it meant preventing her from throwing a fit in public, but then he never did like attention.

"Next time she throws a fit outside, walk away. I'll deal with it."

"That wouldn't be fair."

"It's fair enough. You handled everything the last couple months."

Rogue glanced sideways at the twins, who Sting was feeding simultaneously. It was a major fight for him to get a bottle into even one of their mouths.

"If you're interested in making up for lost work, you could take over the full night shift."

"Nice try, but no."

"Worth a shot." With a shrug, Rogue pulled breakfast off the stove and started scraping the eggs onto a plate. "Should I get Alex now?"

"Once I'm done with these two. See if we can keep the number of things kids need from us at any given time to a minimum."

"It almost sounds like you don't think you can handle all of our children."

"They have me outnumbered," Sting said.

"Well, that's your fault."

"Hey. I went into this expecting that we'd end up with two kids and two parents. It's not _my_ fault your kids decided to multiply inside me."

Rogue highly doubted the twins were identical and, therefore, Sting's coming to have twins had almost certainly not been the result of anybody multiplying. Knowing that Sting would insist that if they were fraternal, one of them ought to have been blond, Rogue also highly doubted that there was any value in pointing this out.

"If you're about done with them, we do have a third child who needs feeding," Rogue said. "I'm going to go get Alex."

Sting braced himself for the moment they had three children screaming and crying over breakfast. Much to his relief, when Rogue came back carrying Alex, she was too drowsy to fuss over how her eggs needed to be _blue_ and not _yellow_ and Mommy cooked them all wrong _again_. She let Rogue seat her in her chair, rubbed her eyes, and made a face when she saw the color of her eggs but didn't cry. Instead, she simply shook her head when Rogue picked up a forkful of egg and held it to her mouth.

"No eggs?"

"_N_o."

"How about a muffin? I made muffins with blueberries in them."

Alex being too young to tell the difference between fresh and week old blueberries, as well as too young to realize just how long about Rogue made those muffins, nodded eagerly.

"Let's make a deal. Three bites of egg, and then you can have a whole muffin."

"No."

"So you don't want a muffin?"

"I want a muffin!"

"Then you have to eat your egg."

Alex pouted, crossing both her arms and legs. When she'd picked that habit up, Sting didn't know. She hadn't done it before thing got too crazy for them to look after her. Rogue, familiar with the new pouting routine after the past month, stabbed the fork into the eggs and pressed them to Alex's lips.

She squirmed, opening her mouth to cry out in protest, and Rogue shoved the food in.

This always made Sting tense, because he was _certain_ that Alex would spit the food right back out and start screaming. Instead, like always, Alex made a face, then grudgingly chewed her egg and swallowed.

"I still can't believe she lets you do that."

"Bisca trained it into her, and for that she forever has my gratitude."

Laughing, Sting leaned over beside Alex and said, "I bet Bisca was scary, huh?"

Alex preoccupied with chewing the gross thing currently in her mouth as slowly as possible, gave Sting an absentminded nod.

"Well, I'm glad we're all back together," Sting said. "Are you happy to be with Mommy and Daddy again."

Alex swallowed, then looked at Sting and vigorously shook her head.

"Really?"

"I want my sister back," Alex said.

"Asuka," Rogue said before Sting could ask.

"Oh. Sweeties, what about your brothers?" Sting asked.

"No! I want a sister! You said I could have a sister!"

Technically, when they explained to Alex that her daddy was having a baby, they said she could have a sister _or_ a brother. Before Sting could correct her Alex threw her fork on the ground and said, "I want a sister! Daddy, you have to have a sister!"

Unsure how to respond to that, Sting looked to Rogue for help, and saw that his lover was trying his hardest not to burst out in laughter.

"No," Sting said. "_Hell_ no. Not again. Never again. Not that I don't love the twins, but we should have stopped with one."


End file.
